Wasteland Legends: The Thin Line
by Alexeij
Summary: After betrayal puts a slave collar around Vault 101's collective neck, Hogarth Mitchell sets out on a grueling journey through the wastes to rescue his lifelong friend Amata from a fate worse than death.
1. Prologue: One Last Broadcast

Prologue: **One Last Broadcast**

 _Boys and girls of the wasteland, I'm back! Keep those tongues lolling like the good doggies you are! That's me alright, THREEEEE DAWG! Master of the waves and DJ extraordinaire, back to enlighten your dreary lives for one last time with the best music Galaxy News has to offer!_

 _Loud and proud, just like we like it!_

 _You might ask, "Dog, where have you been?" Well, kids, it wasn't muties this time. Papa Dog was given a choice by the new Brotherhood Elder: the Truth, or my baby. But how I say, how can you ask a man to decide between his right and left hand? How can you ask Three Dog which head to chop off?_

 _Boy, that didn't go well. You might have heard their broadcasts in passing, calling out to the Outcasts and those other tin-heads. The propaganda spiel. All those lovely ultimatums and conscription lists._

 _But the Dog is back, thanks to our resident problem solver. My baby and I can hear you cry from here, my puppies. You thought I'd abandoned you to those marching tunes, the trumpeting coming out of our dear Elder's ass? Because one good ol' President Eden wasn't enough, right?_

 _Don't worry; I forgive you all for doubting the Dog. It's been a hard few months for everyone out there, some of the hardest since the Old World went nuts and rained a thousand Megatons on all of us._

 _Those Frankensteins played one damn nasty trick on everyone, didn't they? Who'd have thought they had it behind their ugly mugs?_

 _Don't let the propaganda fool you, kiddos. It wasn't the Brotherhood, our magnanimous overlords, that broke the Horde. It wasn't Talon for sure, nor those twisted things they keep on a leash._

 _It was you! Every one of you people! It was Sheriff Simms and the Megaton Volunteers. It was the Regulators, the people of Rivet City, Hood City, Big Town! Even those nutjobs all the way up in Canterbury and down in Grayditch, with their crazy bots and fire-breathing ants!_

 _It was the Lone Wanderer, that kid the tin heads now tell you is a terrorist and a traitor, when he carried the Truth higher than everyone, in his way._

 _Ha, but don't recriminate, brothers and sisters of the wasteland. Old Elder Lyons had his heart in the right place, and so did his daughter. They gave us good years of Truth, courtesy of yours truly, and this may be the Dog's last bark, but not all good things have to end._

 _Open your ears wide and listen well now._

 _This wasteland has its ways to get under your skin. It makes you bitter, hateful and indifferent to the pain and suffering all around you, my dear friends, but until even a single soul burns with the Good Fight, hope won't fail._

 _I remember saying these very words to the kid, the Lone Wanderer you know, not the new Elder, not too long after he dodged a slave collar from Talon and came back from my old hometown. There was a fire in his eyes even then, and it told me, "Watch out Dog, this is one kid who can change things."_

 _Boy, he did. No fairytale ending, but that's not worth a laugh in the world we live in. He took our corner of the wasteland on his shoulders for a little while, one man, and fought the Good Fight._

 _Now he's gone, he left, I don't know. He didn't tell me, you see._ _But even if he's gone for good, remember the lesson he taught all of us._

 _For better or worse, all it takes to change the world is one man. And I know that others like him are out there somewhere, listening to this mad Dog howling to the moon. Don't be scarce, my friends. Your wasteland needs you._

 _Ha! You hear that? These are the Vertibirds landing in the square. Sorry, Brothers. My baby has other plans for the day._

 _This is Guy Mitchell from the South West, our last entry at Galaxy News, with Heartaches by the Number. Let's enjoy it together, folks, and dream of better times._

 _It's been a fun ride. Now the Dog has guests to welcome._

 _AWHOOOOOO!_

* * *

 _A small thing I typed last night. Consider it somewhere in medias res, a spoilerish trailer of the reboot of The Thin Line. I'll probably change the period of time Three Dogs mentions as I work out the precise timing of the various events in this storyline. Next chapter will go back to the chronological beginning of the story, but I thought I'd do something different than the thematic, but sometimes dull, 'War Never Changes'._

 _Anyway, thank you for reading; feedback is always welcome. Don't forget to leave a **review.**_

 _Fallout belongs to Bethesda, blah blah blah, if I had the money I'd totally buy the rights, yadda yadda, come and get me you lousy Feds!_


	2. Buried I: Life of Hog

**Buried I**

The Overseer's morning transmission on the Vault's PA didn't make for a smooth awakening.

"All residents out of bed. The night cycle has ended. All workers are expected to report to their stations by 6:45 sharp. Breakfast will be served from 6:00 to 6:30 in the cafeteria. Security and prosperity to you all."

The last ghostly image of a smiling Amata melted against the rust-covered panels of the ceiling; Hogarth sighed dry lips, inhaling the stale air that permeated his home.

The air-filtering pump was broken. Again. It was going to be another shitty day _._

Bolstered by the positive thinking, the nineteen years old rolled on one side and clawed at the nightstand. He missed the Pip-boy on the first try; the second time, he actually managed to push the bulky watch on the grilled floor. It rattled on and rolled as far as its awkward shape allowed it, which was still far enough to avoid his stretching fingers.

He gave up and with a grunt he sat up, wincing as the mattress's springs creaked user his weight. With a yawn, he stood and plodded to the other side of his one-room abode, bare feet blindly avoiding the grilled portions of the mismatched pavement.

The mirror was decorated by a thin, webbing crack spanning half its length; Hogarth reckoned his face didn't improve the poor object's condition. Tangled brown hair were blotched with dry oil and assorted grime that would give pause even to Butch De Loria's professional combs, should the former bane of his childhood ever forgive him long enough to give it a go.

The rest of him was just as destitute. He'd have to ask Stanley to lend him his razor again soon, unless he wanted to catch lice or God knew what else lurked in the Old Tunnels. A shower wouldn't be out of place, either. Or rather, a _full_ shower. He had just a bar of soap in store for when Floyd called in sick or was bit again by a radroach and he could finally enjoy some overdue time in the water without the flow being cut abruptly for 'maintenance worries' or 'recycling policies'.

 _'You'd guess the guy would come up with something more original since we_ both _work in Maintenance, but God forbid.'_

The sink sputtered brown water when he turned the tap and he patiently waited the thirty or so seconds it took for it to clear by applying paste to his brush and grimacing at the foul odor. Two minutes later, children wouldn't probably run away from him screaming: rather, they'd scrunch their tiny noses and fail to heed their elders' instructions to dutifully ignore his presence by complaining about it, which to Hog always accounted as a marked improvement.

He picked the Pip-boy up on his way to the closet and tossed it on the bed after a cursory glance at the screen confirmed he still had time, though not too much, and that no, nobody had bother to contact him since his last shift ended. Which was fine, he repeated to himself as he examined his collection of brown and blue jumpsuits, all in varying states of dirty and threadbare. Perfectly spiffy.

Hogarth slipped out of his night tee and sent it to keep company to the Pip-boy, then donned his workout attire: a once white shirt, now pink and black with soot marks, and too large pre-war slacks that had gone colorless with too many washes at the hands of dear, old lady Palmer. The hand-wraps were next; Hog huffed as a few more threads came loose when he tugged them snugly against his balled fists. He took another mental note to look for replacements in the Old Tunnels, together with another air pump, a couple of light bulbs for when the current ones inevitably popped, another ball of twine for patch-up works, and a new spring for his BB gun.

Not that he had anywhere to practice anymore, but hey, it was the thought that counted.

Hogarth cast one last, longing look at the battered toy disassembled on his work station – nothing more than four sawed legs and a slab of metal welded together in the middle of the night - then he rolled his shoulders and squatted down to begin his morning routine.

Sweat had broken on his forehead by the hundredth push-up. By the two hundredth sit-up and the customary stretching afterward, most of his joints had popped and the last vestiges of drowsiness faded. Hogarth flipped on his feet, craned his neck until a stubborn joint relented and grabbed a wrench from the workbench.

 _'Fifteen minutes left'_ he checked on the Pip-Boy _. 'It will cut it close, but what the hell.'_

It was one of those days, he reasoned with himself as he attacked one of the wall panels: one of those days when he couldn't give a fickle about the restrictions placed on him and he just missed the old luxuries that had been taken away from him strong enough to risk discovery and the inevitable punishment.

 _'Note to self: I've been spending far too much time with those cockney robots.'_

The last bolt dropped in his palm a minute and a half in, almost a personal record. The wall panel slid back and sideways behind the adjacent one on a small rail system Hogarth had assembled when he created the cache in the wall. Two minutes and a half and the punching bag was hanging by the ceiling from a carefully concealed hook. Soon, the wet thuds of limbs against patched-up leather filled the room.

Physical exercise was one of the few itches he could still scratch, sometimes. His legs craved to break loose and start running, but Hogarth knew he'd have to make do with smuggled boxing sessions and calisthenics for the foreseeable future. Probably until the Overseer died or his father did, whoever the first, which was probably still many decades in the future, unless grinding teeth and booze had anything to say about it.

Hogarth's blows landed harder and faster, straining and stretching the duct tape that wrapped around most of the bag. The increased tempo had the added bonus of clearing his head from unwanted thoughts. Five minutes later he stopped, chest heaving with effort; a fine sheen of sweat matting his skin. He could taste its sourness as droplets trailed down his face and he licked them away while he struggled to unhook the bag from the ceiling.

Fourteen minutes after the beginning of his little rebellion and another back and fro between sink and closet, Hogarth clasped a tool belt around his waist and zipped up the upper half of his work jumpsuit over a cleaner undershirt. It clung comfortably to his damp chest, but he suspected that, by the end of the day it'd be in prime condition to replace his workout tee.

He really needed to smuggle his bag of dirty clothes to dear old lady Palmer one of these nights. Maybe bring her a threat smuggled from the kitchen the next time he went on a forage run. She had a sweet tooth for Andy's plumcakes, like she had told him one or fifty times before.

In spite of the spreading soreness of his muscles, Hogarth couldn't find it in himself to regret his exertions. Even if he _knew_ he'd curse his mule-headedness a few hours into his shift. He always did, but then he always did it again anyway. One of the reasons he was stuck where he was, he supposed.

Hogarth's apartment one of the first on the lowest level of the Vault currently reclaimed by the Overseer's expansionistic policy. Four levels below the fusion reactor and two under the hydroponics bay and bioreactors that fed most of the inhabitants, the broadcasts said it would allow for the 'resettlement of worthy residents' and 'the accommodation of a new generation of families'.

So far only Hogarth, that nutjob Beatrice and a couple of others enjoyed the new space: past all the bombastic wording and mating schedules that made half of the Overseer's announcements these days, it could all be summarized in two words: segregation and stairs. A lot of stairs and wonky doors to get anywhere remotely civil, which was probably the point the Overseer wanted to make for the worthy souls resettled down there: stay out of sight.

Hogarth always found a smile in spiting the control freak in the little things.

A lot of stairs also meant a lot of time to brood and a lot of people to interact with on the way to work; neither activity usually ended well, but that his masochistic brain was nonetheless fond of experiencing it all at every turn. Training himself to exhaustion usually helped in that department, but that morning, time was a sparse currency and he got only halfway to the clean-slate numbness that would carry him past the cafeteria and to the Maintenance department on the first level.

So when Tom Holden, the glorified dirt-shoveler from the Fifth Level, gave him the stink eye, Hogarth smiled back at him and reminded Mary, his wife and a waste burner, that the room down the corridor to his would be soon refit for living, and that Paul Hannon Jr's kid was due in only three months.

He didn't take any real pleasure from Tom's face reddening into a passable impersonation of a tomato, but the image carried him up for three more levels of metal corridors polished to a shine and past chatting throngs of residents in Vault suits. Many carefully edged away, as if he carried some mysterious and highly infective pathogen, but otherwise ignored his very existence as they waited in line for the elevators or climbed the stairs at the leisurely pace only people off-shift could pull off.

Then karma decided to even things up with a vengeance and punish him for his flippancy.

"Hogarth."

 _'Oh for the love of -! Of all the days for you to leave your hole, of all the goddamned times to show your face to the rest of the world, of all the thrice-cursed people you can meet -'_

"James."

His father looked as disheveled as he did, but without the excuse of chronic lack of showers and the general reduction of comforts that befell a social pariah. James' face was waxy and thinner than he remembered, etched with lines deeper than the last time Hogarth had seen him… was it four months before, when he bodily carried Stanley to the Clinic after the old man refused to have his cough checked one too many times? That sounded about right.

The lab coat fell from his father's shoulders like a shroud, the clothes underneath crumpled and stained with all the colors of the cafeteria menu. Hogarth, never one to refute a challenge explicit or not, finally met his father's eyes and found them bloodshot and adorned by small bruises where the man pressed them for too long to the lenses of a microscope.

"You look well," James said.

"I am," Hog lied. "You don't care. Are we done?"

Disappointment colored James' pale cheeks: at Hogarth's choices in life and career, at his role models and at his current predicament. Hogarth tightened his jaw in preparation for another spat, but then the third attendee to the impromptu family reunion made his opinion known.

"Dr. Mitchell," Officer Herman Gomez warned, his slightly Hispanic features carefully blank under the plexiglas visor of a security guard's helmet. "You shouldn't talk to you son outside the allotted time. The Overseer wouldn't be pleased."

A shadow of a rueful chuckle curled James' lips, an expression Hogarth would have elsewhere mimicked at the mention of Alphonse Almodovar's displeasure. The doctor nodded and James broke eye contact first. Hog would take it as a victory.

"We wouldn't want that." James tapped the screen of his Pip-Boy; a dull green light licked the underside of his face, a sharp contrast to the stark white clinical lights that bathed the corridor. "Your medical check-up is two-months overdue. I'll clear you a couple of hours next Friday, be at the Clinic at lunch break."

Hogarth didn't bother to remind his father he wasn't allowed a lunch break anymore. "As if the Overseer would approve something like that."

James didn't look up from the screen. "He _will_. Officer, after you."

Doctor and Officer walked past him and down the corridor, heading towards the cafeteria. Or better, the Overseer's office and from there, hopefully, the waste disposer. Herman Gomez cast a glance over his shoulder after a few steps, a pitying expression where only months before anger and shame used to war with self-restraint and discipline. Hogarth put up the same unapologetic facade he had for the past two years; once more, nothing but a mutual sense of betrayal passed between disavowed teacher and former pupil.

Only when they disappeared around a bend of the corridor did Hogarth ease the grip around the bar of soap in his pant-pocket. A quick glance at his Pip-boy revealed that the motion-tracker _had_ picked up James' Pip-boy signature, but he had been too ensorcelled with the fresh image of Tom Holden's sputtering face to notice. Well, he'd paid the price for it. Something else to heap at the Overseer's feet.

He forced himself to focus on that and not on unwanted relatives as he waited in line at the cafeteria. A class of six and seven years old led by an overtaxed and snappy Mr. Brotch was ahead of him. Hog's old teacher would have to cater and teach them for the next ten years or so, until they were assigned a job and a partner to produce three children apiece with.

All for the security and prosperity of Overseer Alphonse Almodovar's well-oiled machine.

Being the social pariah of Vault 101 meant that Hogarth was excluded from such mechanisms, at the very least until Almodovar remained in power. It also translated, among other things, in the previous day's scraps as his only choice of food and the denial of basic comforts like a place to sit at and eat in the cafeteria.

Hog took it in stride and looked on the bright side of life as he munched on a sandwich of mystery meat on the way to MaintDep. Floyd was still at his table. For once, maybe he'd have enough time to catch a shower and put that soap to good use before the shift started.

He did his best to turn a deaf ear to the cumulative contempt and sneers from the four pair eyes - well, three-and-a-half counting Butch's disability – following him from one of the best tables. They bored into his back for only a few moments before he passed through the doors, and then he could pat himself on the back for dodging that minefield again. Today, he'd even avoided looking back at them, and that was for the best.

If he had, he'd have seen Amata there. The Overseer's daughter, his best friend since forever and his crush for nearly as long, sat at their table every day beside her husband, and would for the rest of their lives.

Vault 101 never disappointed. It was shaping up to be a memorable day. But then again, breakfast wasn't yet over. Hogarth was looking forward to the rest of the day.

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: Welcome to Hogarth 'Sooty' Mitchell's fucked-up life. Gotta love Vault 101. Also, Hogarth's name – as in,_ Hogarth _– is a joking reference to one of the best animation movies in cinema history that shares quite the impressive character with Fallout 3. Kudos to those who guess right._

 _Edit 16/05/18: **PartyPat22** came to the rescue with his proofreading wand, both here and last chapter._


	3. Buried II: Insight, Revolution and Bugs

_Updated on 22/10/16, thanks to WastelandScribe and Docs Pupil._

 **Buried II: Insight, Revolution and Bugs**

In Vault 101 there were those who thrived under the Overseer's caring hand and then those who didn't. Unlike the Old World, however, Vault 101 vaunted a pragmatic approach to discrimination based on the contribution every individual citizen could bring to the community, at the best of his and her ability. The Vault nurtured and educated his children, generation after generation, but the relationship ought to be symbiotic. For prosperity and security.

Hogarth saw the facts behind the PR bullshit while still young and naive: either you or your family had enough skill to be useful, or a tumble down the social ladder was behind the corner. After all, a community couldn't survive for centuries by relying on slackers and half-assed measures, right?

It was a pragmatic philosophy that Hogarth had found quite comfortable and suitable even as a child. Which later told him there was something definitely wrong with his brain, but like every good child he put the responsibility at his Father's feet: what other outcome was to be expected when the only figure of reference to his young and impressionable mind showed genuine interest in him only when Hogarth behaved beyond his years and tried to get involved in his father's work? Sure, he was young and a brat, mostly a hindrance, but at least at those times the Vault Doctor was still his father and not involved in a sordid affair with a bourbon bottle.

Maybe it appealed to him because he was kind of good at his tasks and homework, unlike most of the bullies and the kids who treated him like shit because it was easy and safe to follow the self-elected alphas and the popular kids. After all, who wouldn't love to poke the kid with the weird name and the short temper until he lashed out and was taken down a peg? Hilarious.

Only years later, after Agent Gomez took him under his wing to teach him some 'mental discipline' and stuff when his tenth birthday party turned into a mess, Hogarth realized how broken that philosophy was. Or rather, the principle was good and sound. The applications, however, sucked.

Merit and hard work got you far in Vault 101, but only so far. One only needed to take a look at the Overseer Election Reviews, available to anyone with a Pip-Boy and access to the public library, which was really everyone above the age of ten: for two hundred years, the Overseers always hailed from the Big Families. Mack, Armstrong, Almodovar, Hannon, and Kendalls: the names were there for anyone to peruse.

The only exception had been the Overseer before Alphonse Almodovar, one Adam Leninger, but apparently, both he and his family were among the many victims of the epidemic that claimed the lives of half the Vault's population some five years before Hogarth's birth. Jonas' parents had died then too and James had told Hogarth when he was still very little not to ask the man about it. Not to ask about it to anyone, really.

Mum apparently died of related causes to a resistant chronic infection that quickly degenerated during her pregnancy. She too was taboo.

"Leave the dead to rest and the living to their grief," James would say. Soon, he'd stopped asking.

The waste burners of the time, those still alive anyway, must have had their hands full for quite a while. Or worked very fast.

If didn't end there, the hypocrisy of Vault 101 pragmatism. Funny enough, the more Mr. Brotch tried to follow the book and instill the values promoted by Almodovar into the young minds under his care, the more the cracks became evident. Maybe the GOAT and the whole concept of standardized attitudinal testing was really flawed, as his father sometimes rambled in the precocious phases of alcoholic stupor. Why have a jaded idealist try and teach the new generations the exact opposite otherwise?

Anyway, the Overseer's was an elected position and while the office lasted 'until unfit for duty or otherwise indisposed', there were instances where the almighty ruler had been removed ahead of his time. Again, the Big Families played the lion in the henhouse. And so it was that, to gather but above all maintain support it was the norm for a man of power to share the connected privileges of that power with his closest supporters.

It couldn't be anything too blatant, because the Vault still housed hundreds of people who had to believe the system they had been taught worked as a flawless machine, but if one looked just between the folds, it wasn't easy to miss the tampering here and the shoves there.

The comfier apartments, assigned to the Families for so long that when the talks for relocation piped up among the working class every once in a while, few dared to issue a challenge for the lofts in the Atrium. The better jobs too, though there the favoritism needed to be less pronounced and one had to work before he could receive the proverbial shove.

And so Paul Hannon Jr, firstborn of the Head of Security and Right Hand of the Overseer, wouldn't be aspiring for anything more than a Kevlar vest and a plexiglass visor to hide his missing teeth behind, but sure enough he would get an apartment of his own at the expenses of the still childless - and thus useless - Holdens when Christine Kendall popped the first mewling abomination.

Stevie Mack, wounded in his dignity but still brutal and cunning and otherwise lacking in the brains department, 'suffered' a similar fate despite being the first spawn of that dynasty. Wally Mack instead, by being among the top of his - and Hogarth's - class and shrewd of mind, was comfortably seated in a plush deputy-overseer position at the Food & Sustainment Department. Mostly seated, since he required a cane to move around his bad leg these days, but it wasn't unrealistic for him to aim at the highest chair once Almodovar passed. His family's support and his marriage to Amata surely gave him enough ilk to pursue his ambitions.

Hogarth was sixteen when he was told that he would never have a family. Not because he was less skilled or capable: half the Departments in the Vault had wanted him to extend his apprenticeship, and most of the others didn't because they licked ass so hard their tongue got routinely glued.

His exclusion was only due to his father, the Vault's only accomplished physician and all-around angsty genius, being in the Overseer's bad books.

Truth be told, at the time he didn't care overmuch about it: how could he when his crush and the girl he wanted to be with, Susie Mack, would reproduce with that pig Butch DeLoria, their union bestowed the highest and only seal of approval? What kind of name was Butch anyway? The match also clashed with his model of the Big Families and their power plays: what advantage would Butch, the talentless son of a drunkard from the Third Level, bring to the fold?

It didn't matter that Hogarth knew Susie was smitten with Butch since they were toddlers: the useless prick had even made a habit of taunting him from the moment he had known of Hogarth's affections. It didn't matter that James had a fondness for alcohol too, and they both lived on the Third Level as well: he was the doctor, he was useful. Butch's mom worked as a janitor in a Vault with automated cleaning systems.

All that mattered was that the Overseer's decision wasn't fair or coherent. Pragmatism and population growth charts suddenly took the back seat to a teenager's righteous indignation. It wasn't fair to him, and he wouldn't accept it.

And that, at the end of it all, was the first discriminant in Vault 101. Those who accepted the rules and made do even when it stung, they lead somehow comfortable lives. The idealists or those selfish enough to refute their allotted piece of the world... well, they sucked, and would forever suck. But they did stand up for what they believed was right and proper. That ought to count for something that wasn't a shitty existence.

Usefulness still held a solid second position in the list and thinking back on it, Hogarth begrudgingly realized that Butch and Susie's match did indeed follow the system, in a perversely coherent way. It was the act of a future leader tying a useful follower to his cause with something more durable than flattery and condescension. GOAT or no GOAT, Hogarth wouldn't blink once if Butch was suddenly assigned to Security once and if Wally Mack rested his ass on the Overseer's plush chair or anywhere near - nearer - to it.

At the time, Hogarth had taken great satisfaction in this realization, that for how bad things looked, they still followed that comprehensible layout. What was still lacking was the sense of compensation and rightful retribution of the wrongs he suffered. Sure, he understood the system, but what good had it ever done to him?

James snorted when he heard his idea, but James was used to remaining untouched due to his genius and everything that wrought and it was a behavior that had rubbed off on Hogarth more than he realized at the time. He was good, he had great potential, he was courted by half the Vault's departments without being born with his ass landed in the Atrium.

What could they do to him?

A whole lot of things, it turned out. But like every self-appointed revolutionary genius in the history of forever, Hogarth dug his grave and carved his tombstone with his own two hands. And damn if he wasn't proud of it.

But during those ten minutes on the podium addressing the rest of the Vault, he had been above all of them.

Above Almodovar, who rectified and red-lined the graduation theses belonging to over-achieving students for improper and subversive content after Mr. Broch selected the best and worthy.

Above Wally Mack with, his pedantic, calculated speech and his boisterous, shoulder-clapping father Allen Mack and his stupid baseball hat.

Above Butch DeLoria in the second row, the over-compensating prick, always on Mack's heels but never quite at his level.

And above his father too, with his utter disregard for the educational system and the disapproving, resentful look that grew more and more evident with each shared meal.

Almodovar's expression of surprise and affronted shock when Hogarth fished out the true thesis from his Vault Suit and discarded the load of sycophant bullshit he had delivered to ensure himself a place on the podium was simply priceless. The following ten minutes of picking apart the entire Vault system by the seams in carefully timed sentences were worth of Cicero's highest praise. At the end of it, in the hushed silence that followed, Hog felt like a modern Prometheus who had delivered the fire to mankind.

Butch laughed. Because Butch always laughed and mocked when he was in over his head. Laughed and puffed his chest and swung his fists. Hogarth half-expected the reaction, if only to see his nemesis cover himself in ridicule in front of the entire Vault. In front of the entire World.

Then Wally Mack laughed. Then Freddy Gomez and Paul Hannon Jr and Christine Kendall and Allen Mack and Agent Wolf and soon everyone was laughing or chuckling at his expense. Even Susie laughed. The few that didn't - Jonas, Stanley, Herman Gomez - they looked at him with pity and sympathy from the sidelines, but it hardly mattered when hundreds of people, when the entire World was laughing at his expense.

Hogarth remembered Almodovar's condescending smirk as he encouraged an Amata close to tears onto the podium and thanked him for his' enlightening exposition'.

The following morning, Hogarth had walked to the classroom and the GOAT in a sleepless haze. His mind was unable to process what had just happened when really, in hindsight the reasons and motivations were there all along. He had explained them for the rest of the world to hear, and then he had been unable to accept when the social model he had carefully put together proved to be exactly spot on.

The Big Families, acceptance and refusal, privilege the hypocrisy of it all: what other reaction than ridicule could you expect when you stated the utter obvious with the attitude of one who'd just discovered the true meaning of life itself?

The day of the GOAT, his concept of invincibility-by-genius was given the last push when Mr. Brotch announced, not without a small amount of melancholic sympathy, that his test landed him in the Maintenance Department to repair busted robots, reprogram wonky Pip-Boys and work on refitting the Vault for the rest of his life.

James wasn't happy.

Then the Tunnel Snakes had the brilliant idea to organize him a graduation celebration in the cafeteria, complete with gifts. The rest, as they say, was history.

* * *

In the past two years or so, Hogarth had grown to appreciate some aspects of his work at MaintDep. For one, what he did was actually useful and the part of Hogarth who still kind of respected James for his work despite the man's attitude latched onto that consolation.

That the fruits of his works were reaped by the people who first mocked him and then treated him like some sort of leprous didn't sit well with him, but then again that would remain a constant everywhere else in Vault 101 with things as they were. Contrary to say, being a hairdresser, MaintDep had other added bonuses.

His co-workers weren't one, needless to say. The best treated him with dismissive professionalism: the rest ranged from indifference to active undermining and emotional punching-ballism. Then again, that sort of behavior had been institutionalized as the new blue two years before, so people like Floyd stood out from the crowd only because work forced him to interact more with the guy.

And interaction was the mother of opportunity.

Besides them and the obnoxious British Mr. Handys with their witty, irking personality matrixes - which Hogarth swore he would one day pick apart and turn into toasters - the rest wasn't so bad. The skills he developed became quite useful from day one to restore his new loft in the bowels of the Vault to at least a livable condition. It also gave him access to the old, empty levels during the maintenance runs, and that place was an endless treasure trove for someone who was supposed to subsist largely on the charity of others, or lack thereof.

Moreover, his boss, Stanley, had developed the habit to pair up with him on those runs. Whether out of sincere sympathy or simple need because nobody else would accept to, Hogarth didn't know, but Stanley Armstrong was quite the oddball in Vault 101, a kindred spirit of sorts, so Hogarth was content with deluding himself of the former. The pariah and the oddball had quite a nice tune to his ears, but what would he know after almost twenty years of jazz and soft ambient music on a daily basis?

Today was one such day when he raided the old levels with Stanley. It had been some time since they'd come this deep too. Floyd had even brightened his day by bumping his head into one of the consoles.

Sadly, it was also apprenticeship month for the twelve-years-old.

"All the doors on this level are sealed mechanically by the Overseer's decree," Stanley was explaining as Hogarth went through the lengthy procedure of unsealing. Stopping himself from snorting here and there was requiring quite a bit of focus. "Every time we have to access one, we have to file a request through our deputy overseer for approval. Based on the level and on the index of threat, sometimes an Agent comes with the MaintDep team to look out for Radroach nests."

'Unless you ignore the door and go for the maintenance tunnels in the pavement, kids. A fair piece of advice: think twice before crawling for three floors in the middle of the night, dragging a punching bag chained to your ankle.'

Monica Kendall and Francis Gorobitz were the twin images of bored, pre-pubertal attention, but Monica was also one of Stanley's many granddaughters and so she piped up in a pointless, dutiful question. "Why this room, granddaddy?"

"Spare parts, mostly," Stanley said, turning to look at the screen of his Pip-Boy. "The eggheads at the Reactor Level busted half the lights in their offices, support and all. Now they are down to Pip-Boys." Hogarth could almost feel the enthusiasm perspiring from the kids and the prospect of unscrewing lamps from the ceiling.

'If only they knew.'

"Large ones like those aren't common and this time there was no jury-rigging a repair, so we need replacement parts. These was an administration office, so hopefully... hey Hog?"

"Mmh what?"

"Check your radar." The older man glanced meaningfully at the children. "Mine is picking up something. You think it's Floyd and Alberts on their own run?"

Hogarth stopped, fingers away from the next switch in the circuit case. Floyd and Alberts where on life support duty today, they both knew that fully well. Wordlessly, he booted up his Pip-Boy from energy saving mode and brought up the radar application.

They also both knew of the custom-and-not-necessarily-legal modifications Hogarth had applied to his Pip-Boy. Stanley had been a big hand in making some of them workable options, what with far more years of expertise in electronics, and one of those was a more accurate and wider-range radar than the standard fare, complete with a rudimental biometric-signature reader.

It was mightily useful in avoiding undesirables like James and the Snakes, when he remembered to listen to the warning ping. It also helped quite a lot in going undetected during his nightly supply runs in an out of the older levels.

'What... what the hell are those?'

"Stan, take the kids upstairs. Fast!" Whatever the signals belonged to, they were bigger than radroaches. Bigger, faster and approaching from a sector that should be sealed off for all purposes and intents. "Send a distress call to Security too." His connection to the emergency system had been rescinded two years before among other things, and Hogarth hadn't seen the necessity to piggy-back on someone else's connection so far.

"My brother says we must not listen to Sooty," Gorobitz squeaked back, addressing Stanley and pointedly avoiding Hogarth's glare. "That Sooty is stupid and will get us in trouble if we listen to him."

"Shut up and move," Hogarth shot back. He picked up his toolbox and glanced down at his Pip-Boy. Sixty meters away. He shoved Gorobitz in the other direction not too gently and kept doing so when the boy protests outgrew words and he ground his feet. His shouts bounced off the walls as if he was being drawn and quartered on the spot.

'Whatever chance we had of going unnoticed has puffed. Fan-fucking-tastic.'

The corridor they were in had had partial illumination restored for the duration of their stay. The overhead lights were low and suffuse, casting their shadows in multiple directions like formless, oblong fingers grabbing at the bare, stained walls. For a few moments, the only sounds attacking the decade-long silence were those of boots hitting the metal panels and Gorobitz's protests as Hogarth gave up on the shoving and threw him over his shoulder.

Then he heard them, whatever they were. The clicking of sharp legs on metal and the chattering of flickering mandibles was deafening in the narrow confines of the corridor, many times more so that the chirping similar sounds belonging to Radroaches. Hogarth didn't turn around, but he knew the creatures were bigger and were approaching faster than they could run. He saw the same realization on Stanley's pale, lightly lined face as he picked Monica up and broke into a full sprint despite his age and playful heart.

The stairs were up ahead, not a dozen meters away. It didn't matter much though: Security rarely patrolled lower that the Fourth Level and in occasion of the scavenging run, security protocols required the access doors to the Sixth Level from below to be closed. The technicians had the codes, but it would take time for the unsealing. They'd never make it before the creatures caught up to them, not with two children and an old man in the fold.

' Why? This area should be clean of critters.'

Hogarth didn't know why he did what he did next. Gorobitz's brother was probably right and he was a stupid, stupid moron with lingering delusions of grandeur and revolution. By the time that reasonable theory crossed his mind, it was too late to turn back. Damn pride.

He unceremoniously dropped the no-longer kicking Gorobitz and shoved him towards the stairs. "Stan, run!"

Stanley probably insulted him back, cursing at his blockheadedness, but Hogarth had already turned towards the big critters chasing after them, and whatever the old man said washed over him. A girl screamed, or maybe it was a girlish scream from a boy. Whoever, Hogarth couldn't blame them.

He felt like screaming along.

Ants. Big, twisted lovechildren between a lovercraftian horror and Mackay's wet dream on wildlife and radiation. Matted carapaces of dirty chitin advanced on long, elbowed legs, hooked claws ticking and screeching against the metal paneling, Black eyes shone maliciously at the human.

Hogarth goggled at the twin jagged jaws protruding from each of those heads and clicking, clicking faster and faster with every passing second and every meter covered between them and the prey. Him. Some dripped a blotchy, dark liquid that Hogarth's mind refused to believe was what it was.

There weren't too many of them, his mind offered. And most of the 'not too many' were maybe as long as his arm and maybe half as wide, but the jaws were still as long as his index. Plenty of teeth to shred his ankles or crunch his neck like a straw.

So it was with dawning that Hogarth's eyes fixed on the one at the back. The big one, Bigger. His mind failed him.

'This is it. I'm going to die.'

He didn't get any answer to that. The critters swarmed towards him and someone screamed. Definitely girlish, but it wasn't him. Screaming wasted breath: in a fight, your breath was your lifeline.

Hogarth brought the toolbox down in an arc onto the first bug and the jawed head splattered with a crack and a squelch. Ant brains and ichor splattered on his pant legs and nausea assaulted him like a wave. He kicked the next and the makeshift metal club arched sideways. Exoskeleton shattered and muscle strained as another critter turned into a smear of mucus on the wall.

White-hot pain shot up his leg as an ant tore into his calf. Stars danced in his vision then died as teeth tore at muscle and bone. He staggered, but a mad certainty that falling translated into 'gruesomely buying the farm' kept him standing and sent his leg lashing out towards the wall. Another flash of pain, then relief as the jaws slacked and the broken halves of the bug rolled on the floor.

Hogarth wobbled backwards against the wall, head swimming, darkness squeezing out his vision. He swung out and his arm shuddered on impact. The toolbox flew out of his hand, clattering away, and shaking fingers searched for the tool belt. Daily routine was the only thing that allowed him to find his targets on the first try. The bugs wouldn't have allowed for a retry.

The screwdriver in his left found purchase into a chitin skull, right through one eye and out of the back. The resistance was comically lacking and Hogarth experienced the sudden urge to laugh.

The stimpak's needle found the top of his shredded calf instead, clotting stimulants and nutrients shooting into the torn tissue. The syringe emptied, but the needle snapped inside. He didn't have the breath to curse, he barely had any to keep going. The ants kept coming.

He pulled back the screwdriver, then jabbed it forward. A sudden weight pulled his left down as he limped back along the wall. Hogarth's eyes widened under a mess of sweaty, sticky brown hair: there was an ant dangling from his Pip-Boy, jaws working fruitlessly into the hard-ceramic cover. The bugs could jump!

He smashed ant and Pip-Boy into the wall, flinching as assorted ant muck splashed onto his face, mouth and nose. Hogarth spluttered in reflex, only getting more of the stuff on his tongue, but gagging reflex was overruled by survival instinct kicking in overdrive as another jumped at him, aiming for his throat.

Hogarth staggered back and brought up his left: once more, searching jaws only found hard ceramics and chitin met metal walls, but the rapid, heavy skittering of claws on the pavement drove any thought of triumph away. The cow-sized bug charged at him over its dead kin, a mass of vicious appendages and vengeful bug honor.

This time, the mind-voice agreed.

Hogarth ran.

A leg only half functional, he actually limped away. He dragged the limb along, too terrified and morbidly fascinated to turn tail completely and stop staring. Bullies he could deal with. Vengeful guards redeeming a slight to the family? Easy-peasy. Even the small critters were doable.

That rolling bulldozer of animal hate? For Christ's sake, he only had a screwdriver. What should he do, jump on its back and break its fucking neck?

Again, the choice was taken from him. The stairs came up as unexpected as they always did to anyone running backwards in a near panic. Taken as he was with the bug, he didn't notice he had passed under the open door until the first step dug into his ankles and momentum pulled him on his back, the other steps biting into his spine.

The screwdriver flew from his grasp and his breath went with it. Then the ant was upon him, squeezing past the door to end the chase.

Unlike what he expected, it wasn't the jaws who got him first. It was the forelegs and the hooked claws at their end that raked him over. Panic and adrenaline brought sudden clarity to Hogarth's swimming vision and out of reflex his left hand, encased in the Pip-Boy glove, lashed out to stop the coming blow as if it was a punch.

Somehow it did and the reinforced screen cracked against the tip on the attacking extremity. The force behind it jostled Hogarth and he rolled with it as if he was dodging a dropping kick from Gomez. The second claw bit into his back rather than his face and this time Hogarth screamed as blood flowed and flesh ripped, the sound echoing up the stairwell.

Then he was past it, no longer between the bug's jaws and legs but propped against the wall and the steps, his back throbbing and spewing blood that stained the rusted metal. The bug tried and round back on him to finish the job, to eat him, but it had four other legs to control and a huge bulk to move around in the small doorway. It pushed and screeched as it tried to work the rest of its body past the entrance, flailing its head in confusion and frustration and snapping its jaws at Hogarth, not quite able to reach him.

Maybe it was the blood loss going to his head. Maybe it was desperation or delusion or too many a Grognak comic. Maybe he didn't want to become ant shit, to the joy of the Vault. Hogarth didn't stop to ponder. He gathered his body under him, bit down on the pain and jumped.

He landed on the ant's thorax with a grunt as one of the legs was caught under his weight and snapped, tearing his jumpsuit open; one of the broken halves progressed further, biting across his ribs and leaving behind a long, crimson line and eliciting a curse from Hogarth.

The giant ant screeched and thrashed, its body collapsing onto the missing limb under the additional weight. Hogarth's feet hit the ground again and he pushed himself up once more. His vision throbbed with the pain lancing up his leg and back. He could feel his hands slipping from the chitin and himself out of consciousness.

He swung his sane leg over the ant's carapace, then he bent forward and grabbed the two elbowing antennas protruding from the thrashing head. In his addled state, he imagined the thing's multiple eyes rolling back to settle on him as he planted both feet deep into the back of its head and pulled.

The ant screeched and Hogarth grunted, then hissed and finally joined the beast in a scream that was pain incarnated. From his back, where muscles were tearing and blood gushing out; from his leg, where the wound had never closed and now the stimpak provided only the euphoria keeping him going; from his right hand, crushing down and bleeding on apocalypse-hardened chitin that cracked, slinters wedging into his palms.

For long moments, man and ant struggled for dominance in a battle of endurance and stubborness. Then chitin broke under an iron vice and the giant ant buckled, sending Hogarth crashing against its back and then rocking forward again like a crazed yo-yo riding a wild bull. His head felt like an axe split it in two when the ant screeched again and then buckled on its missing and stuck legs again, claws raking and slipping over the bloody, smooth floor.

Momentum carried him forward. Before Hogarth realized what he was doing, his battered body registered what he was holding in both hands and towards what he was being carried by the merciless laws of physics.

The broken antennas carved into the ant's two major eyes like a hot knife through Cram and continued forward, past the exploding liquid orbs and straight into the bug's brain. Hogarth coughed violently as the ant twitched one last time, and then crumpled on the ground, where it remained still.

Hogarth was barely conscious when the echo of steps boomed down the flights of stairs. The Security Team, guns out and fingers twitching, found him straddling the carcass of an ant the size of a cow, mumbling nonsense in his delirium. The last thing he managed to focus on was the flashlights underneath pistol muzzles, then even those winked out and Hogarth slipped into peaceful nothingness.

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: So, this chapter started following an outline and then went its merry way shortly after the beginning of the second scene. I think you will all agree with Monica Kendall that fighting giant ants barehanded in a dark corridor is far more exciting than more info-dump by Stan and Hogarth disassembling a sink, right?_

 _Anyway, thank to everyone who reviewed since last chapter: krieg118, docs pupil (UPDATE!) and the ever faithful Aegon Blacksteel. Also, TheWriterOfFira who was the first to review TTL back in July and who I forgot to thank last chapter because I'm a forgetful jerkass when on a writing spree._


	4. Buried III: Oh Father Mine

**Buried III: Oh Father Mine**

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel, Little Caesar's**_ _and_ _ **WastelandScribe**_ _for their reviews, support and critiques._

0 = TTL = 0

 _James can feel the sea air on his face. Gunfire echoes in the distance and seagull caw overhead._

 _He knows he's dreaming._

 _Then he turns around and recognizes where he is. The columns, the walkways. The whole building is half a ruin even when it is not the real thing: two decades in the Vault have stripped him of the wishful thinking and embellishment of his youth and crunched any vein of imagination. Only unadulterated memory and single-minded obsession remain._

 _The price of Safety went beyond his physical Liberty, but he noticed too late._

 _That single, lucid thought tells him it's worse than a dream, that he'll remember it all on waking up and that he definitely hasn't had enough to drink._

 _He proceeds anyway: the faster he'll get through it, the quicker it'll be over. And yet his pace settles in a lackadaisical gait, where outside the dreamscape even the briefest walk outside meant risking being shot at. His eyes take their time to roam over the empty corridors and the silent halls. Steps echo where jury-rigged machinery beeped and broke down routinely; dust and waste have covered the footprints of fervent minds blossoming with ideas, of duty and drive and hope._

 _In the Rotunda, the heart has stopped beating, but if James focuses, or maybe it's the dream's own will speaking, he can still hear it. Under his feet, the sweetest ambrosia pouring into his ears. Thomas Jefferson looks down at him, immortalized in stone and writing. Dead eyes accuse from their tomb of polluted water and abandoned resolution._

 _"I know," James whispers, then glares up, a spark of the old flame dancing behind his eyes. "Hypocrite."_

 _He knows just then he's not alone._

 _"You kept your promise, love," she says, and still, after so long, James heart aches with longing. Their time together was too brief. Ripped apart by a will not their own. By betrayal._

 _"He had Safety. He still has. You've given your son a life he would have never enjoyed out here."_

 _"He wasn't worth_ _this!_ _" he snaps, but the hand waving around is tired with repetition. How many times has it played out, the same, pointless script? Why does he still bother? The answer is easy: to hear her voice one more time. "He wasn't worth all our work, all our sacrifices. All the lives lost so that more would prosper."_

 _"He wasn't worth us," she finishes his thoughts, and James nods numbly._ _Of all the people that populate his dreams, of all the projections greyed by years of misery, hers has never faded. Flickered, maybe, but the cinders always rekindled._

 _Her hand rests on his shoulder, snakes under his coat, through his shirt. Her fingertips are scorching against his bare flesh and for a single, delirious moment the Rotunda wavers, a mirror of water disturbed by the ripples of precious memory, one of the feeble barriers still erected between him and the barrel of a gun._

 _Thump-thump._

 _The Rotunda shakes, and he with it._

" _She was selfish," she says._

 _Thump-thump._

 _It reverberates from his chest, up through her fingers, and the ceiling cracks, but no lances of sunlight penetrate._

" _She had no right."_

 _Thump-thump._

 _Water pours down in gallons, raucous and shattering as if filling a new sea once the partition have crumbled away, or returning to replenish a drying bed._

" _She betrayed us all."_

 _James walks into the water and drinks from it until all he can breathe is its purity._

0 * TTL * 0

The beeping came first, then the cold. Hard metal against his flattened cheek. His fingers began to tingle as he shifted his head from his arm, eyes still shut.

The beeping, again. He should go see. Why was that so important?

' _Alphonse wanted something. About Hogarth and some… ants.'_

The curved outline of a computer blurred into clarity, the keys half covered by his own arm spread over them and across the desk. The metal desk he was sleeping on.

' _Passed out on,"_ he corrected himself. _"A scientist must be precise.'_

His mouth was stuffy, almost anesthetized as he tried to chow away the awful, familiar taste of lingering puke. The small, constrictive world swam and spun around him tauntingly in rhythm with the buzzing between his ears. The hangover wouldn't rear its ugly head until later, and it wasn't like he had no experience working with ethanol giving him a little boost, but he already knew Jonas would bitch about it.

' _No reason to slack-off, Dr. M._ _Stop drinking so much, Dr. M. Is that a water chip you're stealing, Dr. M.?'_

James propped himself up awkwardly, leaning on one side only to stop when he felt the chair threatening to slip away from under him. He blinked, taking in the polished steel of the Clinic walls and a Ms. Nanny floating silently in and out of an operation room, mechanical arms picking and plucking at surgery tools covered in crusted blood.

Green blood. Green blood belonging to ants. Animals from the _Outside_ that almost killed Hogarth.

He could almost feel the Ms. Nanny's three ocular-lenses narrow at him judgmentent, but it was so easy to ignore he almost didn't even have to try anymore.

He straightened up and sluggishly pulled at his coat where it got caught behind his leg, then shuffled to the drawn curtains around the operatory table. The beeping insisted, but he had to see. That it wasn't just some alcohol-induced hallucination. That there still existed a world outside, beyond the Vault's walls. That he hadn't imagine the first thirty-two years of his life.

That _she_ wasn't just a product of his failing mind.

There was one of the drones on the slab of metal. The pits in its torso, arranged in orderly lines, revealed only formless mush underneath. The organs bobbed in jars filled with greenish biomed gel, giving the whole Clinic an impression of evil mastermind's lair. A complete array, though the brain he had to remove in loco in the Old Levels, from the only carcass whose head hadn't been damaged beyond salvage.

' _Gomez always taught him well. Too well for his own good.'_

James reached out, fingertips brushing the sleek exoskeleton. The chitin had been washed of the dirt and blood caking it while still in the Old Levels, by order of Alphonse. He didn't want anyone to come in contact with potential biohazards, so much that only one had been carried to the Clinic for the exams, and both the halls and the carriers had or were undergoing a complete rad scrub.

He'd be treated with one of his own, and so would Jonas. Hogarth? Probably, at least to avoid contagions in the general population. Any bacteria or pathogen that could survive in the Wasteland would prove dangerous for the molerats of Vault 101. The other bodies had already been disposed of at the incinerator.

Then the hole to the ant's nest would be sealed, and he would be still stuck underground. Just like another molerat.

 _Beep-beep-beep._

James padded to the bio-analyzer, watching dully as the black screen lit up with scrolling green text, filing out notions and numbers he already knew by heart.

Flesh and blood were radioactive, unfit for consumption. Cellular markers were altered from the stored information on the pre-War species, but still recognizable. Tumorous growth within all major organs, but James knew first hand none of them would impair the things from ripping of a wastelander's leg at a moment's notice.

Hogarth had been quite lucky.

The results kept scrolling until James switched the terminal to low-power mode. He swiveled lightly on the stool he'd perched himself upon, eliciting soft creaks from the seat.

The familiar pang of disappointment that accompanied every thought of Catherine's son had been dulled recently – for how long, he didn't know. Days and weeks tended to blur together. Yet now, it burned brightly, making James' fingers itch for the bottle.

He swiveled around and rose gingerly to his feet, only to witness the Ms. Nanny grab the half-filled bottle on his desk by the neck and pour it down the sink. James' face scrunched into a scowl.

"Unit #16, enter hibernation," James hissed. "Authorization: Dr. James Mitchell, ID 0002… 90A6," he finished after a pause to push down the bile.

"Votre autorisation est refusée, docteur Mitchell," the French spewing can of bolts had the cheek to reply. One of its ocu-lenses whirred on him while she slotted the empty bottle into her storage unit for recycling at the earliest convenience.

James had half a mind to process the robot for recycling.

The door to the patients ward hissed open before he could translate intent into action. Jonas was reading off a clipboard as he walked in, spectacles heavy on his nose. Seemingly satisfied, he scribbled something at the bottom and only then noticed James staring, or rather glaring at him.

"You overrode my authorization?" he asked, pointing at the Ms. Nanny. Jonas' lips pressed together, then he shook his head.

"I didn't. Chief Hannon did." For a few long moments, the only sound was that of the Ms. Nanny busying itself around the dissected ant, then Jonas spoke.

"Dr. M, Hogarth is on a fever. I had to give him some Buffout for the time being and I extracted the broken needle, but he needs surgery remove the piece of… jaw, I guess, stuck into his tibia."

James shook his head. "Even if we put him on the table, not even Super Stimpacks aren't enough for bone regeneration. But Alphonse will never concede on the Auto-Doc."

Jonas took a couple of steps forward, surprising James. He had met his mother Anne once before, when he still lived up top: a bold, blunt woman. She was the leader of Overseer Leninger's scouts, no matter how much Almodovar changed the history books and imposed silence to fulfill his little fantasies.

From the first day he was saddled with him as assistant, James always thought she'd be ashamed of what a sycophant her only son turned out to be.

So it was with surprise that James found himself grasping the clipboard – Hogarth's medical register, he realized – as Jonas shoved it into his chest.

"Then go to the Overseer and _make_ him relent. There's your _son_ in there." Jonas' voice was a leashed rumble, dripping with clashing emotions. "Act like a father for once. It's bad enough what he has to go through every day, now you'd let him become a cripple too?"

They held each other's gaze for another long moment, then Jonas sighed and made his way out of the room.

"At least go and see him, if you can be bothered." Then the Clinic's main door hissed shut behind him and James caught a last glimpse of him passing by the Security guard on duty.

"What are you looking at?" James barked at the Ms. Nanny. Its ocu-lenses narrowed and he thought he heard it huff, but it dutifully resumed its work and pushed the table outside of the operatory room and through to the hatch dropping directly into the incinerator for a quick disposal.

James found himself alone in the too pristine, too orderly ambient. It and the Clinic as a whole had nothing of him: the robotic aides ensured the utter cleanliness of every surface, the sterilization of every tool and the perfect, mechanical arrangement of every element. The air smelled of disinfectant for the routine practices, but it lacked the unending motion and exciting air he'd breathed elsewhere during his training.

Compared to the years of his education back West, the hardships of self-teaching and the dire conditions the Followers operated under most of the time, the whole set-up in Vault 101 never felt like a dream come true it should have. It was a sterile cage, almost surreal in its unchanging perfection and suffocating control. It refused him as he refused it.

' _If we had had this kind of resources at the Project, none of this would have happened.'_

Again, his throat itched for a drink, to cloud the recent lucid dream. At the same time, annoyance swelled into his chest, fueled by frustration and the alcohol still flowing in his body. The cursed tin can _had_ to throw away his vodka, didn't it?

James turned to the door leading into the patients ward and took a couple of quick steps forward.

The terminal chimed.

James grunted, stopping himself from pushing the door commands. He brought up his Pip-Boy and frowned at the screen. Was the damn thing failing him too? He'd updated the software forwarding all notifications and communications from the terminal directly to his wrist only a month before.

Turning awkwardly on his heel, James slumped at his desk and highlighted the message, narrowing his eyes when he failed to recognize the sender. Then the breath caught in his throat and he goggled for a moment, his head jerking around to see if anyone had just snuck up on him to look.

' _Someone is always looking in Vault 101.'_

It was the hardest thing he'd ever done to spend the next two minutes typing away, ignoring the message as it beckoned him, always at the corner of his eye. When he was finished, his hand lingered on the switch, eyes taking in the header and the first lines of the message to assure that no, he wasn't still in a dream. He was tempted to pinch himself though, a stronger temptation than he would have imagined.

The he deleted it and powered down the terminal.

The Pip-Boy buzzed in acknowledgment of the forwarded message and James got up from his desk, picking up Hogarth's medical clipboard. Almodovar could remotely access every terminal in the Vault from the Overseer's console, but his Pip-Boy was fairly safe thanks to the softwares he'd… appropriated from Hogarth's Pip-Boy six months before. The boy never realized he always had a back door in there, ever since his tenth birthday.

The only good thing Almodovar could teach him in twenty years, after all, was paranoia.

He couldn't well keep the trepidation out of his gait, not completely, as he passed into the ward. A small corridor was lined with half a dozen beds partitioned by curtains, plus an isolated room at the back. There remained the Vault's only remaining Auto-Doc, activated sparingly and only with Almodovar's authorization.

Hogarth was on the third bed. Gone were the blood soaked rags of his jumpsuit, replaced by an hospital gown. An IV was plunged into his arm, the bag of blood half-empty, and on the nightstand Jonas had left the Buffout, just out of reach of the patient's reach or flail.

The wounded legs rested on a cushion, wrapped in medical gauze helping to keep the inflammation at bay. James had no idea on how to synthetize an antivenom against whatever toxin the ants secreted, but either the Ms. Nanny or Jonas would.

James gave him a once over, then he fished out the clipboard and pretended to go over the data while confronting it on his Pip-Boy. For a moment, the longest moment in twenty years, he thought he'd imagined it all, that the alcohol was finally taking its toll to his sense.

Then the message was there. James' eyes stopped on the header.

 _Project Purity_

He had never told anyone in the Vault about it. About his past, and his greatest failure. Almodovar only wanted a physician after the Exodus left the Clinic unmanned, and James was qualified for the job. No questions asked, only a bunch of exams and nineteen years of reciprocal disdain.

This couldn't be a trap of his to justify his demotion from Vault Physician. James read, though the words were already engraved into his mind.

 _To Doctor James Mitchell,_

 _My employer and I are great admirers of your work at the Jefferson Memorial. We'd wish to help you see your work to completion. To that end, a first step has already been taken to extract you, and whoever you would deem noteworthy, from Vault 101. Other associates are already on the move to clean the Memorial from the creatures squatting inside._

 _With your cooperation, we can have you and a team of scientists transferred there in about ten days._

No signature, but definitely someone from the outside. For a moment, James felt delirious, felt like guzzling down an entire bottle and break into laughter. It was almost too good to be true. Someone from the Outside, after all those years.

He shook his head, as if to clear it. No, not the Outside. The _Capital Wasteland_.

But when something seemed too good to be true, it usually was.

 _What's in for you and your employer?_ He typed back. _Who are you?_

He didn't have to wait for longer than a minute before a new message pinged on his Pip-Boy screen. A whole minute he spent fighting the urge to look over his shoulders as the ghost steps of Security paced on the other side of the door.

 _Our talons reach far, Dr. Mitchell. We wants the same thing you do: a better future for this Wasteland, and to fulfill our ambitions. Sometimes, sacrifices must be made so that the status quo can be broken. You've sacrificed twenty years of your life already._

 _You can call me Mr. Burke. I'm sure our partnership will be fruitful._

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: Shit's about to get real in the next chapter._


	5. Buried IV: Homefront Jazz

**Buried IV: Homefront Jazz**

The week Hogarth spent in bed, awaiting for a surgery that may never come, was one of the most miserable in his life, up there with any he'd spent in prison after the whole GOAT debacle.

On the hip side, he ate plenty, the bed was comfortable and at times he was so high on Buffout the pain in his leg receded to a remote throbbing drowned in euphoria. Also, the only trace he saw of Security were glimpses of silhouettes changing shifts outside the Clinic, rather than a couple of fully kitted, club-toting troglodytes out to avenge the Family's reputation that populated his dreams.

On the bad, bad side, the euphoria never lasted much - Jonas said it was to prevent him from developing a habit - and most of the time he was left helpless, barely able to shift his arse on the bed without adding new notes to the word 'pain' in his dictionary, his leg held up and straight by a pulley.

Two days in without his Pip-Boy, Hogarth was bored out of his fucking mind.

Three days in, he'd vocally reprogrammed the attending Miss Nanny to play chess with him on Jonas' board. Turned out he vastly overestimated his own skills at the game, and to top it off Jonas had been less than enthused when he dropped by for the evening check-up.

The only hint of James' presence in the Clinic during that time was the odd whiffs of alcohol above the tang of antiseptics every time the door slid open.

Five days in, his dosage of Buffout was cut down by half and the Auto-Doc kept mocking him and his broken leg from the corner of the room, unblemished and untouched.

Later that same day, after Jonas left after another awkward and apologetic conversation, Hogarth decided he'd break the Overseer's own leg first chance he got. Or maybe Butch's.

 _'Wally already has a limp… he always liked symmetry though.'_

Halfway through the sixth day - or at least he thought. The wall clock had broken two days before and remained mockingly stuck on the seven-forty - the door hissed open again. Hogarth had been dozing, but the plodding of feet that didn't quite belong to Jonas fished him out of the dizziness. Then he rubbed his eyes again, not quite gaping, but nearly there.

"Amata?"

' _What are you doing here?'_

"Hey Hog."

He hadn't seen her so close up in months - he had made _sure -_ but the words that would send her away dried up on his tongue under the heat of his own selfishness. Hogarth blinked twice to take her in where she stood, a couple of feet away from the bed.

"Damn A, you look a wreck."

She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, but the shadow of a smile settled over her drawn, pale face.

Then she tilted her head at him. "You're one to talk."

He shrugged, smelling the tang of bile in her breath, and inside he scowled. "Heh, what can I say? Always wanted to be a big damn hero."

They shared a chuckle and Amata finally drew up the visitor's chair, which had been decidedly empty since day one, and sat gingerly.

He hated himself for how relieved he was to talk to her again. It almost made the past week worth the torture.

"How are you doing?"

"Better," he lied shamelessly. "The pain's not what it was a few days ago." _'And I'm not gonna answer the rest of that question, thank you very much.'_

Hogarth bit down his first, snarky question on how life as Mrs. Mack was, then the second too. An awkward silence settled between the former best friends, until Amata sighed and rubbed her eyes.

"They burned Stanley two days ago," she finally said in a small voice, rubbing her thumbs, her lips pressed into a severe line.

Hogarth nodded, swallowing the knot in his throat. "Jonas told me. Thanks for being there."

The Chief Engineer's beleaguered heart, already weakened by a past stroke and running on stubbornness, had given out on the last ramp as he fled the ants, or so Jonas told him. Not being able to actually attend the ceremony, and thus avoiding the hate and resentment from the man very extensive family, had probably the only real boon out of the whole broken-leg predicament. Hogarth hated himself for thinking that way, but the undercurrent of relief under that was almost palpable to him.

He felt his eyes prickle for one of the few men he could call a friend in the Vault, and he blinked rapidly to clear the forming tears before anything could show.

"Nobody's blaming you, Hog," she said, because of course she could still read him like a book, how foolish of him to delude himself otherwise. Her hand was warm on his forearm.

"Everyone has a right to blame me, Amata. It's the hippest thing since baseball and sweet rolls." It came out sharper than he intended, or maybe not. Her stiffening made him feel like an ass anyway. The following chuckle was empty even to his own ears. "The kids are alright?"

"They're fine, yes. A bit shaken." She shook her head. "Those creatures. Who would have thought something like that still lived on the outside?"

"McKay did, a long time ago," he pointed out helpfully, and she rolled her eyes, ghosting the word _smartass_ , at which he almost grinned. Then his expression grew somber. "Maybe they're not the only ones."

The words tumbled out of his mouth like pebbles, rattling the near silence. Amata boggled but still managed to send him a disbelieving look. Hogarth glanced up at the camera swiveling up in one corner, and shrugged expressively at her.

"Hog, don't. You know what will happen this time if you break the Law again." There. The pity in her voice was almost painful to hear, a knife sinking into his chest, and Hogarth's fist clenched briefly around the sheets. No, they weren't going over _that_ again. He masked it with a grimace and a jostle that brought actual pain up his leg and spine, but helped clear his head.

"How many times do I have to say this, A? It was all my fault. I was a moron who bit the bait and I'll own up to it for as long as it takes. If anything, I should be the one to apologize to you," he said to her, voice shaky from the pain. Then he forced out a smile that wasn't quite there. "Stop beating yourself up over the Snakes, Amata. It's not good for the baby."

Amata was suddenly unable to look him in the eyes, finding her lap of greater interest. He patted himself on the back for a perfect evasion and a ten out of ten in the asshole department. But that had never bothered Amata before, and it didn't bother Mrs. Mack either, apparently.

"H-How?" she asked after a long minute. "I haven't told even my father yet."

 _'Jonas kept the exams confidential then.'_ He made a mental note to thank the man the next time they were alone and he sent the cameras in a loop. Or maybe punch him for not suggesting a controlled miscarriage.

"Well, now you have." He waved jauntily at the camera, who'd zeroed down on the two of them already. Amata stiffened. "Come on A, I've grown up in this place. Some signs you just can't miss. So, a boy or a girl?"

She sighed. When she looked up, her expression was a study of contrasts: elation and dread, fear and excitement, longing and relief and probably half a dozen more his slightly Buffout-addled brain, combined with the lingering fever, couldn't identify. The soft contours of her face had a certain firmness now, one he couldn't remember seeing before.

"Twins, actually." He liked her better when she smiled. Everyone did, really. "A boy _and_ a girl."

 _'Well, isn't that fantastic.'_ "Congratulations are in order." Then he leaned forward a bit, as much as his leg allowed him, and peered at her face. Pale and a bit too drawn, but that was that. Little makeup, and only to cover morning sickness. _'Still.'_ "How is he treating you, A?"

She shrugged, looking away. He didn't like that. "It's not bad. Wally's not his brother," ' _Yeah, he's the smart, crippled one. How is that better?''_ "And his family knows I'm his best bet at becoming Overseer. Allen's wife, Gloria, is really helpful too. A good woman." She sighed wistfully, eyes losing focus in memory for a moment.

Then she frowned. "Stanley's death hit her hard, so I hope the pregnancy will raise her spirits. God knows she'll love to spoil her grandchildren."

"More Macks haunting the halls. Fantastic," Hogarth snarked, and Amata glared at him sharply. He quickly rose his hands in surrender. "Peace, peace. Just make sure they take after the better half of their genes."

They talked for a bit while longer, skirting around certain topics in silent agreement and verbally fencing on others. Stanley's funeral came up again, and so did the ants, but Hogarth's hurried remark was laid to rest for the time being. He kind of hoped the microphones in the camera were as wonky as the last time he checked them up months before, if only for her sake, but he was fairly sure they weren't.

When she left, half-an-hour later, his bedtable was weighed down by a few books, but more importantly, she had returned his damaged Pip-Boy, the broken display fixed, and actually fixed properly. Hogarth was on the verge of tears, and not from the pain alone.

"Oh, by the way," she said on the door, turning around with a small smile, one hand holding the interface pushed open. "Dad's come around. You're going into surgery in a couple of hours."

Hogarth sighed, then smiled up at her, and some of the fixedness melted. Her own grin turned just a bit more impish.

"Thanks, A. You're the best."

0 * TTL * 0

"You're mostly recovered," Jonas was saying as Hogarth paced up and down the Clinic row a few days later, flexing his leg and staring at the large, jagged scar running all around his shin and calf. "I think we can lay down the assisted regenerative therapy and let your body finish the job. How are you feeling?"

The lights went out.

The emergency system bathed them in a red, pulsing light as it activated moments later. The door leading back to the admittance and ambulatory portion of the Clinic hissed and shut down with a metallic clack as per emergency protocols, sealing Hogarth and Jonas inside.

Technician and doctor stared at each other, half-formed words and questions ready to take off, when the PA speaker outside and their own Pip-Boys played a cold, honeyed voice.

 _"Good afternoon, Vault Residents. You may call me Mr. Burke. From this moment on, the Talon Company I represent assumes direct control of this facility."_

Hogarth's eyes grew as wide as dishes. "What the -? Talon Company? Wha-?"

 _"I advise you remain put where you are as my subordinates come to collect you. We already control all of your systems: any form of resistance will only fray my men's tempers, and your well-being is of great importance to my organization. Cooperate, and no harm will be done to you."_

 _"Your Overseer has now a few words for you. Mr. Almodovar."_ There was a loud pop and the speakers scratched and hissed, then the Overseer spoke, or tried to at least. Despite the shock and confusions and bewilderment, Hogarth's chest warmed a bit inside at the stammering fear in the man's voice.

The bangs and barks of gunfire in the background frosted that over pretty quickly.

 _"This - this is Overseer A-Almodovar. All residents, p-please - "_. There was a pause, and Hogarth imagined the man gulp, or swallow.

 _"FIGHT BACK! SECURITY -"_

A loud thwack, grunts and thuds and curses.

 _"How unfortunate."_ Mr. Burke was back at the mic, and Hogarth glared at his own Pip-Boy as if he could burn the man through radio waves. _"For your best interest, Vault dwellers, stay put, and forget this man's delusional ramblings. There's no need for an Overseer anymore: Talon will care for you, if you cooperate. As it will if you don't."_

The PA fell silent and Hogarth stared at the flat screen of his Pip-Boy, mouth working uselessly, gaping and shutting, brain running in circles.

Then he heard the gunfire, this time not through the speakers, and his thoughts ground to a screeching halt.

There, two panels of glass and half the Clinic away, Officer Kendall crouched behind a column in the corridor running abreast the Clinic, firing blindly over his shoulder until the N99 belched no more bullets and he went for another clip.

 _' We need to get out of here!'_

Jonas was ghastly pale, a feat for a man of his complexion. The clipboard for Hogarth's physical education had cluttered to the floor at some point and the doctor stared at the scene playing in near mute realism not fifteen meters away, one hand rising as if reaching for the window.

"Jesus Christ… he wasn't joking."

"Jonas, for fuck's sake!" Hogarth grabbed the older man by the shoulders and shook him. The man yelped and his head snapped back to Hog. "We have to move! We're sitting ducks here!"

"No, no." The light of clarity lit behind the doctor's spectacles, but his voice trembled, and he took a step back from the window, holding his head. "Where would we go? They must control the Overseer's office to transmit like that. And if they control it, they control the Vault. Systems, Life Support, everything."

"Then we make for the Old Levels," Hogarth ruled, turning around kneeling in front of the door's console. Deft fingers found the connection cable for his Pip-Boy, plugged it into an hidden slot and the screen was suddenly aglow with green lines of code. "There's no electricity there, the connection can be activated only manually. If Kendall can -"

"Hogarth, stop!" Hogarth almost started at Jonas' shout. Jonas never shouted. But the Vault halls never rung with gunfire either, gunfire that made the clacks of his BB gun seem that of a child's toy. Something cold and crunching settled at the bottom of his stomach, reaching out with nauseating tendrils.

 _'Gomez is on shift today. I have to find him. And Amata. Suzie. The children must be in the classrooms, but how, how did they get in?!'_

"Hogarth, you're gonna get killed." A louder bark echoed, making Hogarth wince and press the wrong command. Cursing, he wiped the operation and rebooted the software. "They come from the Outside. They're warriors, better armed, and cruel. Security can't compete. Better if we stay put and work with what we have -"

"And how do you fucking know about that, eh?" Hogarth inputted one last command, and the door hissed open. The booms of weapons going off redoubled in intensity, now just one door and wall away. "That they are Outsiders? That this isn't a coup?" _'They'll go for Amata!'_ He stormed out, crouching low, catching a glimpse of advancing man in drab black armor on the other side of a wide, cracked window running half the length of the Clinic main room.

"For the love of God, stop and listen to me!" Jonas hiss-shouted again, but it was drowned by a bang, a shocked cry, and a roaring whoop. Hogarth recognized the first voice as Kendall's, and he threw himself on the ground, sliding across the immaculate clean floor until he touched the far wall, a mere few feet away from the main door.

Bile rose in his throat as the unknown voices became two, their words distorted and drowned by more of Kendall' blood-curdling screams. Hogarth hazarded a peek over the window's edge when the steps halted.

A squat, large man in black combat armor loomed over Kendall' sprawled form, grimacing down at the tossing shape of the agent. Kendall' own hands grasped at his face, blood oozing down and coating his fingers in glistening red as he shouted his throat hoarse. Shards of Plexiglass from the officer's shattered visor littered the floor.

"Bah, this one's ruined. Nice shot bub." the squat man spoke, voice nasal and disappointed.

"He asked for it. Rat shoulda listened to the Boss." Smoky and gravelly, the second voice was closer, so close Hogarth winced. ' _The door. He's opening the door. They have the backup codes.'_

Hissing, Hogarth waved at Jonas to hide, and looked around frantically for anything to use as a weapon. The Ms. Nanny was nowhere to be seen, even if he could still reprogram her, but that was no combat unit anyway. The nearest surgical tray was meters away, its contents unknown. Moving away from the wall would betray his position and Kendall's screams, worse than any he'd ever heard or caused, froze his blood to icicles. Tentatively, his leg complaining, he slipped on his feet, flattening himself just at the side of the door.

"Remember, Boss wants the boy and the Doc with all their pieces in place. Both of them, ya hear me?"

"Yeah, got it. Now shut him up and lemme open this door."

The click of a hammer was drowned by the following bang, and Kendalls' screams were cut off.

 _'Wha-'_

"Ah, there we go."

The door's hiss reached Hogarth from a distance, his ears still ringing with the single shot that silenced Officer Kendall. Officer Kendall, one of Almodovar's minions. Kendall, who had two daughters and a third fast on the way. Kendall who hummed strange songs that didn't sound like jazz at all during the sanctioned scavenging runs in the Old Levels.

He was dead.

So casually dead. Murdered.

He had to be.

And Hogarth would be next, no matter what they said. And then Amata. And then everyone else.

This wasn't Vault Security, who boasted with little to no skill to back up their guns and batons. These weren't the Tunnel Snakes, big and brawny and cunning, uninventive bullies.

These people were not from the Vault. They couldn't be.

Murder was a taboo never, ever broken in the Vault. Hogarth nearly had once before, the first in decades, but he had been too caught up in the heat of the moment. It had been an accident, more or less. And still he had paid, dearly so.

These people would never pay. Nobody could make them, because no rules bound them. And each shot now echoing from a distance could be one more life cut short, one more casual murder.

It could be Amata. Or Suzie. Jonas. Mr. Brotch. The Old lady Palmer.

James.

Hogarth grabbed at the muzzle of the assault rifle crossing the threshold and pulled it forward. Smoky Voice stumbled and squeezed the trigger. Shots blasted away at the Clinic, ripping into beds, desks and walls, lighting the dim room with muzzle flashes and the clangs of metal on metal. The rifle buckled under Hogarth's hands; he didn't let go, and the helmeted head of Smoky Voice stumbled into view, followed by the upper half of his body.

His jaundiced face was contorted into a shocked snarl that slackened as his body bounced against the door frame and Hogarth's elbow struck in the gap between his helmet and shoulder. He struck just under the man's jaw, into the side of his neck, and beady, hateful eyes rolled back into their sockets as the Talon slumped into a choking heap.

"What the hell -"

Hogarth wrenched the assault rifle from slack hands as a shotgun barked and the inner wall of the Clinic dented with multiple impacts. Flinching despite himself, he spun the blocky weapons in his hands like it was his BB gun and moved to the other side of his cover, leaning into the window watching the corridor.

Kendall didn't move. Dead. His killer still stood above him, shotgun smoking.

Hogarth squeezed the trigger and the rifle kicked against his shoulder like a wild stallion, driving his aim upwards. Glass exploded outwards, showering the corridor. Someone shouted. It wasn't Jonas, and his throat hurt.

Squat and Nasal rattled like a puppet and staggered back, legs buckling. Crimson buds blossomed across his belly, chest and throat with every impact, spraying the walls with red. A bullet tossed away the helmet, and the next one painted the wall with fat blobs of the man's brain.

The body collapsed with a thud and the empty rifle slipped from numb fingers a moment later, clattering at Hogarth's feet.

His nostrils burned with the acrid smell of gunpowder and the metallic taste of fresh blood tickled his tongue. Hogarth stared past the shattered window, at the body slumped against the wall, its head leaking blood in throbbing spurts.

 _'I…'_

 _'I have done this.'_

 _'I've killed a man.'_

His was pretty sure he should be feeling disgust or regret, even pain, right about now. He didn't. Nor had he when he'd seen Freddy Gomez in a coma, the boy's mother sheer despair and his teacher's hate.

That time, it had been a close call. Now, he'd broken the highest of Laws, violated the sanctity of life, riddled a man with bullets until he was unrecognizable. All that on purpose, with the unbridled intent to kill.

A man, yes, because Squat and Nasal had been a man in shape and probably in mind, and pegging him for an animal, or a monster, would have been stupid and irresponsible.

Hogarth only stared at the small jets spurting from the man's head, unable to look away in mild fascination, unable to care.

"Hog!"

He turned at Jonas' cry, and that saved him his life. The knife stab was sluggish but well-aimed, the Talon behind it still reeling and stumbling. It rent his suit, scraped flesh and Hog snarled. He grabbed the attacking wrist in a vice, turned it away and kneeled the Talon in the crotch.

The man howled, then bone snapped, cartilage crunched and teeth flew when Hog's knee rose again, smashing Smoky's face in. He flopped unconscious and Hog's knee flared in pain as he knelt, picked up the knife barely specked with his own blood and pressed it against the man's throat.

Jonas' hand closed around Hog's wrist with surprising strength, and he hesitated, clenching the handful of coarse, grimy hair in his fist so hard the Talon moaned in pain.

"Don't," he said, and Hogarth didn't know whether it was a command, or a plead. "You've won, he's down. His mates will be here soon. We need to move."

Hogarth swallowed, vision swimming. "Do we?"

"You killed one of theirs. I don't think they'll take it well."

The blade drew a bead of blood, and Jonas' grip tightened. Then Hogarth shook his head and jumped on his feet, wincing, flopped Smoky on his back with a kick, and started unbuckling the utility belt at his waist.

It was a matter of seconds. Hog tied it around his own waist and steadied his mind around the feeling of the almost familiar weight, using it as an anchor for his thoughts. He sheathed the knife, then brought up his Pip-Boy, booted up the radar application, and cursed.

"We have to go, Jonas! They're coming."

The doctor hesitated, then grabbed the abandoned assault rifle and followed Hogarth out as shouts and gunfire erupted from the other end of the corridor. Hogarth hauled himself behind the pillar and almost stumbled on Kendalls' body, while Jonas ducked his head and threw himself back into the Clinic as bullets whizzed past and crashed into the walls.

"They're armed!" someone shouted

Another voice topped the barks and belches. "Stop firing! The Boss wants them alive!"

The gunfire sputtered, then died. This time, the words registered, but to Hogarth they made little difference. Jonas was right: he'd killed one of them, possibly two, and a quick glance at his Pip-Boy told him there were already four more at the end of the corridor.

"Hog!" Jonas hissed from the door, cradling the empty assault rifle awkwardly and pointing. "The tunnel!"

"Wha -?" He followed the finger, and he barely resisted the urge to slap himself over the head. Not a few steps away, tucked into a niche in the wall, the hatch leading into his second home, the Vault's maintenance tunnels, lay invitingly.

"I can open it, it's a mechanic lock," he hissed back redundantly, then his eyes lit up and he freed the a blood-caked shotgun from under the dead Talon's leg. "I cover you, you get over here and we slip in there."

Jonas shook his head and winced doing so. A red stain was slowly spreading across his side, rivulets of blood slipping through his pressing fingers, until the needle of a Stimpack pierced the flesh and Jonas sighed in relief.

"I can't crawl in there, not with my side as it is."

Hogarth blanched, horror petrifying his face.

"Jonas, come on. We can't stay here."

"You there, Vault Rats. Can ya hear me?"

Of all things, the Doctor chuckled from his side of the corridor. "Don't worry, I don't intend to die just yet." With some effort and much grimacing, Jonas picked himself up from the floor and tossed the empty assault rifle further into the corridor, towards the Talons. Clearing his throat, he yelled back.

"I can hear you, yes. I'm Doctor Jonas Palmer, and I'm coming out. Don't shoot me, ok? I don't have any weapons."

Then Jonas took a steadying breath, rose his hands up, and to Hogarth's horror, stepped out and took a step towards the blips on his radar that were the Talons. Then a second. On the third step, when he realized he was still alive, he turned to Hogarth.

"Turn off your Pip-Boy's receiver and _go_ ," he hissed, before he disappeared further down his side of the corridor.

And then Hogarth saw on the radar that Jonas was stepping to shield with his own body the space Hogarth would have to cover to reach the hatch. Not knowing what to feel - gratitude, annoyance, grief - he chose not to feel, but to act.

"'Right Doc, nice and easy. Now you too, boy. Don't try anything funny, we can find you everywhere in this hole."

Hogarth checked the shotgun's safety, booted up another software on his Pip-Boy, took a steadying breath and pulled the trigger.

His ears rung, the hatch's lock exploded and Hogarth dove for it as bullets started flying. His back flared up in pain and he could hear his heart beating in his throat and temples, but the hatch swung open when he pulled.

Then he threw himself forward and disappeared into the tunnels.

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: Apologies for the delay. My thanks to_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel, WastelandScribe**_ _and_ _ **Krieg118**_ _for their reviews._

 _Don't forget to_ _ **review**_ _and leave me your feedback. It's kind of important, especially as the first, prologue arc draws to a close._


	6. Buried V: Ground Rules

**Buried V: Ground Rules**

 _My thanks to_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel**_ _,_ _ **Pro Assassin**_ _and_ _ **MangoBait**_ _for reviewing this story, and to anyone else who favorited and put this story on their alert list._

0 = MiA = 0

Mr. Burke gave no outward sign of distress or disappointment as he switched through the cameras on screen with small twists of the pommel.

"Securing your son is going to be problematic." His voice was unwaveringly pleasant. And that unnerved James more than the four Talons lounging in the office with their full-helmets and heavy weaponry.

James stiffened in Almodovar's chair and his fingers hesitated as he continued to update the list of Vault denizens already in Talon hands. The count kept ramping up by trickles and bursts, a live update by radio and appropriated Pip-Boys of the Company's methodical advance into the belly of the Vault.

"Hogarth was always… headstrong. A fighter," he finally conceded.

"I can see. And to think I expected casualties from your Security teams," Burke mused, stopping his surfing on three agents somewhere in the Old Levels. He retrieved a perfect cigarette from a shining case that disappeared in the pocket of his pressed suit moments later. A flick of flint, and James smelled tobacco for the first time in decades. "His talents would earn him a place of renown in Talon after some grooming."

James' hands paused for good at that. He glanced at the sealed door the beaten, collared form of Almodovar had been dragged through. James could already see the results of his stupid show of defiance in the tally he kept on the side of the main list. _Kendalls. Hannon Jr. Wolf._ "We had an agreement."

"We still have," Burke assured him. "No collar, nor manhandling of your son… though we may have to compromise on the latter now. A small lesson, to teach him right from wrong."

"He is to help me at Project Purity," James reminded the suited man, struggling not to look away from the narrow dark lenses and the hint of cold irises behind them. "Not be conscripted in you army."

Mr. Burke took a drag, then flicked his cigarette, scattering ashes on the pristine floor.

"Now, wouldn't that be his choice to make?"

James bristled, but held his tongue. It surprised him how much the topic inflamed him, his burning annoyance at Hogarth's tenacity notwithstanding. To think that a single promise taken in the heat of the moment would bind him so thoroughly, even after twenty years living its consequences… James was disgusted at his own lack of resolve.

Burke was speaking again. "Don't you have means to trace his position?"

James swiveled in the Overseer's chair and accessed another console. A 3D map of the Vault appeared in great definition, the glowing green lines dotted with hundreds of white marks, each one a Pip-Boy. He pointedly ignored the handful of red ones and sifted through the names. A minute later, a scowl marred his face, and his annoyance doubled.

"He removed his Pip-Boy from the grid, didn't he?"

James nodded, and leant back in the surprisingly uncomfortable seat, wincing as his neck popped a joint.

Burke chuckled. A clear, honest to God amused chuckle that sent nuclear winter running down James' spine.

"Interesting." He took another drag. "Pick up that list, Doctor, and tell me: who's the closest person to your son there?"

0 * TTL * 0

The maintenance tunnels spanned between every level of Vault 101, an ensemble of damp, low passages compressed between layers of concrete, radroaches' waste and tighter, smaller tunnels barely fit for a man to crawl into that snaked underneath every room, on every level.

Any other day, they'd be Hogarth's refuge, his lifeline to personal comforts, a favorite means of transportation and his workplace to boot.

On any other day, soldiers from Outside weren't invading and taking over his home.

Radroaches nests were quite low on his list of concerns at that moment.

The laser shot had burned through the brand new jumpsuit on his back and probably some of the flesh underneath. Truth was, he couldn't gauge the scope of the damage beyond the stinging, much less do anything about it without a mirror and any form of proper illumination. The risk of infection hiked up several positions in his cobbled-together mental list, settling just underneath the most urgent voices.

 _Keep moving, ignore the pain._

 _Amata. Gomez. Susie. James. Find them._

 _'And then what?'_

He pointedly ignored the smell of gunpowder and blood that still filled his nostrils. Panicking and life-chrysies about _taking another man's life_ would need to wait until he figured out something. Anything.

After all, it had only been self-defense. Kill or be killed. Right?

The Talons had Jonas. Probably the rest of the Third level at that point. Was it safe to assume the Atrium and Second level were under their control as well?

 _'They spoke through the PA. They took the Overseer's office. They control everything.'_

Hogarth halted and let the echo of his footsteps dissipate down the spider web of tunnels, straining his ears for pursuers as he steadied his breath. Seconds trickled by, punctuated by the sting across his back, and eventually the trickle of water in the distance and the faint buzz of working machines above him reigned unchallenged.

 _'What am I going to do when - if I find them?'_

He was alone. Wounded, and just recovering from surgery. They were many. He only had an utility belt whose contents he ignored, they had rifles and lasers and armour and God knew what else.

Even assuming he could save one - hell, all of them, what would they do? Live it off in the tunnels, in the Old Levels? There was no food in either, no medicines. Amata was pregnant, for fuck's sake!

 _'The Old Levels. The ants…'_

 _"Hog."_

Hogarth froze. The words from the PA were deafening in the confines of the tunnels, the echo distorting the sobbing, shaky voice into something out of a nightmare.

 _"Hog. P-please stop running. Come back to the Atrium. Everyone's there: Jonas, Gomez, your father… I'm there. They have guns, a-and they've killed so many already. Please, Hog. Don't… don't get killed, and come back to me."_

 _'A.'_

The PA fell silent, then the recorded message played again.

 _"P-please stop running."_

 _"Come back to me."_

And again.

" _Come back to me."_

And again.

Hogarth didn't stop moving.

0 * TTL * 0

"He's not showing up. Are you sure the Overseer's daughter was the right person?"

James swallowed as he looked on over the Atrium from the upper level catwalks. The assembled population of Vault 101, a sea of confused blue suits, huddled below at the point of the Talons' guns, silvery collars snapped tight around their necks. Dozens of eyes found him at any time, be them angry or scared, worried or shut by a beating. More glared at his bare neck, accusing.

 _Traitor_ , they said. He let their judgement wash over him. He'd never been one of them in the first place. Never could, and never _would_.

He nodded at Burke instead, trying not to show any doubt or the building trepidation stewing in his gut. "He will. He'd do anything for her."

"Maybe his definitions of 'everything' and 'anything' received a good shake today then," Burke said, replacing his prim fedora over his balding head. James had almost goggled when he realized Burke was probably older than he was. His physique, lean and wiry with muscle under the suit, suggested anything but.

"I wouldn't blame him," Burke continued. "Priorities and morals are such fickle things." Always pleasant, as if they were discussing the weather. "Very well, let's get this demonstration started. Sergeant, take the woman on stage."

The order travelled through the Pip-Boy at Burke's wrist, one of the many spares in the Vault's deposits, and from there to every other Pip-Boy Talon took from the dwellers. Finally, it was projected by the speakers, startling the population of Vault 101 into gluing their attention to the stage in the middle of the Atrium.

For the first time in two hundred years, it was not an Overseer or a valedictorian student who walked up the ramp to be heard, seen and admired by the dwellers. Burke strode up alone and unarmed, the pitch perfect image of pre-War elegance and poise, his fedora inclined at just the right angle to cast a shadow on his face.

The Talons snapped at attention, boots stomping and fists pounding on ceramic breastplates, then the scratch of flint and a flickering flame held the silence at bay more than the agitated, muffled murmurs of hundreds of people.

 _'They haven't realized it yet.'_ James almost pitied them, but then quashed that line of thought. Madness lurked in that direction. He'd already been there once. _'Hogarth, where are you?'_

"Good morning again, dwellers. I'm pleased to see so many didn't throw their lives away in pointless resistance. The Talon Company doesn't like to waste its property."

Gasps. Rare blinks of awareness, followed by expressions of muted outrage or crestfallen resignation.

"Let me dispel what delusions you may still harbor. That collar around your neck means you are slaves. Goods, if you wish, valuable ones and with a will attached. I'm sure you all believe this to be unfair and despicable on our part, but it has been an hard two hundred years in the outside world, our Wasteland. To us, your pampered existence is an affront to our sacrifices."

Burke snapped his fingers in command, then took a long drag as two Talons pushed the old lady Lucy Palmer on stage. The elderly woman put on a brave façade, the tremor in her limbs more due to age and strain than fear and weight around her neck.

James remembered she'd been the Vault's emissary to Megaton for years at the time of Overseer Leninger, before the Exodus. Like him, she belonged outside this cage, yet had condemned herself to a life underground for the sake of her grandchild.

He didn't look away, he owed and respected her that much, though he knew well what was going to happen. It wasn't his first demonstration.

"Mrs. Palmer, step in the middle of the stage. Thank you."

How Burke could use courtesy to make an order all the more threatening was something beyond James. The old woman complied.

"You have a choice ahead of you, which is a privilege most slaves don't receive. You and your Vault are valuable to us, and one way or another, Talon will make a profit out of you. Even if only by selling you to the highest bidder." There he smiled down at them. "But that doesn't need to happen. It's up to each and every one of you."

Burke's free hand emerged from his pocket, a small device clasped in his palm. One finger jutted out from his fist, the cigarette now pressed between his lips.

"You can collaborate with Talon and lend us your expertize. Talon will provide you with safety, food and clean water for as long as you remain _useful_. If your services proves to be outstanding, one day you may even be freed, and join Talon as full-fledged members."

A second finger joined the first, cutting through the heavy air like a sword. "You can fight for us as well, if a healthy body is all you have to offer. Training, weapons and armors will be given to you, and you will confront what we've kept at bay for so many years while you led your idyllic lives down here. Repay your debt to the Wasteland, by shedding your blood for it. You will remain slaves, with the same prospect of integration in case of outstanding service, but you would remain useful to Talon, so we won't sell you either."

Both fingers came up and picked the cigarette out of his mouth.

"Or you can fight us. Resist us. Even try to run. In which case, you shall learn that Talon doesn't condone disobedience. Mrs. Palmer."

Burke took a step back, and James' heart ached against his ribcage. His eyes strayed and found Jonas unerringly, pale and clammy to one side of the Atrium.

Then Burke flipped a switch on his device, the collar around old lady Palmer's neck beeped, and the micro-charge detonated.

In the ensuing cacophony of screams, as the old woman's head rolled off the stage and her body flopped down the other way, neck spurting blood, James almost missed the staccato of gunfire ripping through the stage at Burke, a volley of bullets missing the man by a hair's breath as Burke leaned away.

"BURKE!"

 _'Oh, Hogarth.'_

Burke smiled up at the boy standing outside the Allens' home, on the catwalk right in front of James. The smoking rifle clicked empty in his trembling hands, shock and surprise etched onto his face by a drunk chiseller. If James looked closely, he could spot the feet of the downed Talon behind the mag-door.

As Talons shouted and pistol-whipped the crowd back in order, Burked tilted his fedora at Hogarth, one hand waving for the other mercenaries on the upper level to hold their fire.

"Hogarth Mitchell. The prodigal son returns. Put down that weapon, so we can talk face to face like men. I have an offer for you."

Hogarth's breath was heavy, testimony of how hard he must have pushed himself to climb up to the Atrium from the Third level. He also seemed to finally notice the dozens of Talons in black armour following his every movement with itching fingers. James leaned away from the railings he didn't realize he was clutching.

"Hogarth. Son," James said, and the boy's head whipped around to look at him. "Listen to this man. You'll only put your friends in more danger."

Hogarth's mouth opened to answer, to speak, maybe to shout. Then the words visibly dried up, almost jerking his whole body back.

"… you don't have a collar."

"Hogarth, we'll talk about this. Later." James' voice lowered to a hiss. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Burke gesture at one of his men on the catwalks, one holding what seemed to be a riot shotgun _. 'Yes. Baton bullet. Good.'_ "Stop behind a stubborn fool for once and listen to your father."

"Hog, run!"

Amata's cry was drowned by the bark of a shotgun, and Hogarth fell on one knee clutching at his side as the rubber bullet bounced around, disappearing in the crowd below. The rifle fell out of his hands and cluttered over the edge.

"Take him."

Hogarth hacked, but didn't stay put. James almost snarled as the boy threw himself back into the Allens' loft, trying to return to his tunnels for sure. The futility of it was galling. He would be caught. He had nowhere to run! Why couldn't the boy see James was trying to do what was best for the both of them? Why did he have to be always so fucking difficult?

Two Talons stormed into the Allens' apartment, disappearing behind the curtains. Then one sprinted out, or tried to. A detonation from inside rent the air; he was picked right off his feet and flung against the railing, which creaked and snapped under his weight. He plummeted some five meters and hit the stage with a wet thud. He didn't pick himself up.

On the stage, his pants now stained with the blood of his subordinate, Burke hummed and tilted his head to one side. James' eyes were drawn to him like a magnet.

"You have an interesting son, Doctor. A stubborn brat, but he has potential." The brow under the fedora crinkled in thought. "Lots of potential. It would be a shame to waste it."

0 = TTL = 0

 _Next chapter will conclude the Vault Arc. Don't forget to put this story on alert if you want to know when next chapter's out, and please remember to_ _ **leave a review**_ _with your impressions, positive or negative as they may be. Feedback is the only way for me to improve and bring you a more engaging, enjoyable story. Thanks._


	7. Buried VI: A Crawl Out of The Hole

**Buried VI: A Crawl Out of The Hole**

 _My thanks to_ _ **Krieg118**_ _,_ _ **disgruntledgrumkin**_ _,_ _ **Pro Assassin, Aegon Blacksteel**_ _and_ _ **The Desert Dancer**_ _for their reviews and support._

 _And yeah, being shot by rubber pellets is a bitch and a half._

0 = TTL = 0

The maintenance tunnel was low, narrow, pressing down on him, the heavy air fighting every breath back into his chest. Pipes and conduits buzzed with flowing water and shook with the echo of the explosion stuck in his ears.

Hogarth dragged himself forward, stumbled, then fell; he crawled back to his feet and staggered, swaying to the side and into the pipes. The metal was chill and damp against his skin, but his other side burned, burned like nothing ever before. Heat and pain stabbed deep with every step, tender and swelling skin coloring black under his shredded suit.

There was something wrong with his spleen. And ribs. His lungs. With his life. With the world.

Grandma Palmer was dead. _Dead!_ His ears still echoed with the explosion, a soft yet deafening sound only he could hear in the belly of the Vault.

The collar had blown her head clean off. One moment she was there, the next, with the push of a button…

Hogarth didn't stop walking. Couldn't stop, really. The blood had dried on his hands but kept gushing down his back, the wound there having reopened at some point. The stench of gunpowder clung to him like an illness, wafting in his nose. He staggered forward, one hand against the pipes guiding him ahead, deeper into the Vault. Towards the Old Levels and the tunnel there.

Everyone had a collar. Tom Holden and Butch and Susie and Jonas and Gomez. Amata too, Amata too must have had one around her neck, like Grandma Palmer had before Burke blew hers up. But he had only heard her voice, her scream of warning. Her voice battered into his eardrums, drowning the echo of his steps.

 _Hog, RUN!_

 _RUN!_

He had listened to her. He always did. _'Stupididiotcretin'._ He listened to her even if the collar around her neck, the collar he _knew_ was there but couldn't be sure of, was his fault. The demonstration was his fault. They killed Grandma Palmer because _he_ ran and killed the Talons, rather than obey and follow along.

His head spun with blood loss. _'Stubborn idiot_.' Burke would kill more. He probably already had. Because he ran. Because he kept running. Because he wouldn't stop running.

 _'Stop being a stubborn fool and listen to your father for once.'_

James had watched. Just… watched, unblinking. He had urged him to stay when Amata told him to run.

James didn't have a collar.

The realization hit Hogarth like a mallet between his shoulder blades, almost sending him to his knees. He staggered up, wheezing. His eyes prickled. He tasted salt mixed with blood.

 _'Why? Why?'_

Hogarth kept moving, half-crawling, half-stumbling. Touch and memory were better guides than his vision, swimming and blurring. He strained to catch pursuers in the echo of his own steps and the ghost screams of Amata in his head.

0 * TTL * 0

His fingers grasped for the rung of a ladder, finding it chilly and damp. His grip faltered as he heaved his body into one of the elevator shafts, his fingers and shoes slippery with blood. He winced as his back and side flared in twin agony. A whimper escaped his gritted teeth.

The echo silenced around him, then grew stronger again. Steadily. Approaching.

A foot found the lower rung, then the next. Every time one hand uncurled his brain told him it would be the last, yet he found purchase again, every time a little lower. Once, twice, three times. The echoes approached, pounding his drums in. Voices, harsh and demanding, mixed with the rushing steps.

The ghost of the impending collar clutched around his throat inch by inch, stealing his breath.

One foot slipped, hitting only the empty air. Hogarth's side flared and his arm numbed in an answer. Then he was falling.

He came to his own wheezing, the ringing in his ears and the sight of his snapped fingers, bent backward and sideways.

Hogarth screamed. Loud and short, until he couldn't breathe. Then he whimpered.

The tunnels answered with his own voice, and more.

"Down there!"

They'd find him. They'd catch him. Put a collar around his neck. Blow his head off.

Hogarth bit down on another cry and rose on shaking legs. One step. A second, one leg in front of the other. He cradled one hand to his chest and searched blindly with the other, barely aware of what was up and what down. He brushed metal, then one of the guides carved into the wall. His body screamed ' _Stop'_ in a hundred voices.

Amata's voice silenced them. Grandma Palmer's head flopped off in his mind eye.

Hogarth crawled deeper into the Vault, heading for the Old Levels. And freedom.

0 * TTL * 0

Stevie Mack was having a shitty, shitty day.

It all started when he woke up at midnight for his guard shift to his elbow throbbing. Painkillers dulled the pain to a nuisance but never got rid of it entirely. And so Stevie spent hours upon hours in the Old Levels, staring at the same fucking hole in the same fucking wall he had for the past week, itching for some of those big ants to try and peek through.

None did. As the hours refused to pass by, he returned to mull once more over thoughts of justice and retribution, one hand caressing the handle of his truncheon.

When the Security Radio had died, Chief Hannon sent that cranky old man Taylor to see what was wrong. Lucky bastard, Stevie had thought.

He never came back, and then the radio aired again. Mr. Burke, Talon Company, the Overseer being beaten live on all channels. The world turned on its head, shattering any and all certainties. The Outside had come knocking, blowing away the castle of cards of Vault 101.

Richards had nearly panicked. Chief Hannon turned knobs and shouted into dead comms.

"Let's go teach these fuckers a lesson in respect," Stevie had said.

Right there and then, Richards' head had jerked to the side and Stevie's visor was sprayed with blood before they'd taken three steps. From the tunnel to the Outside, someone howled and whooped, then opened fire again.

How long had it been since then? Stevie wasn't sure, but he was down a lot of shells for his shotgun. Richards had stopped twitching a while ago; Chief Hannon could be dead as well for all he knew.

"Come on out, ya rat-fucker!" One of the filthy bastards who'd killed Richards and dared invade his Vault screamed, waving some assault rifle and spraying bullets wildly at his position. In the poor light, his skin was dark with grime and soot, smudged tattoos covering his exposed flesh. Of which there was an awful lot. Pieces of tire and metal plates hung from his body in disarray, poorly emulating some kind of armor. "I'll make it nice and quick!"

"How stupid can you be?" Stevie sneered as he shot him. The assault rifle clattered away as the man's shoulder exploded in a fountain of gore. He fell howling, this time in pain. Stevie grinned, then pulped his head as he imagined another's, sending his stupid hat of bones rattling somewhere down the corridor.

Yeah, a shitty, shitty day. But damn, wasn't it fun to finally let go.

If the Vault was fucked either way, why not go all out?

"Come and get it, you scum!" Stevie yelled back, feeding another shell to his shotgun. Laughter bubbled in his chest when bullets bounced off his cover, a couple of lockers upturned in the middle of the corridor.

Now, if only someone were to deliver that bastard Hogarth to him… His elbow complained again as the shotgun rocked, but the sole thought made the pain sweeter even when he missed.

A single shot, and the pain would be gone for good. Better than any chem.

Oh.

Stevie blinked, then leveled his shotgun into the room on the other side of the corridor, the mag locks of the door disengaged since the week before.

He almost couldn't believe it.

There he was. Hogarth Mitchell, the bastard who'd snapped his elbow that one night in the holding cell, rather than take his punishment as he should have. The fucker was broken and bloodied - someone must have had a party without him - but there he was nonetheless, crawling out of one of the tunnels running under the floor like a radroach nobody bothered to stomp down once and for all.

Stevie looked down the iron sights and grinned. Today was going to be a beautiful day.

"Fire in the hole, ya cunt!"

Something small and hard bounced off his helmet and rolled between his legs. Stevie's eyes went wide.

"Wha -"

Then the grenade went off.

0 * TTL * 0

He'd lucked out by finding one of the floor panels still unbolted. The deafening song of guns had welcomed him to the Old Levels. Now, that had fallen quiet too, even its echoes. Screaming and cheers replaced the bark of guns.

Hogarth remembered Stevie's wails from that night in Security's cells, when Chief Hanlon and the eldest Mack child had paid him an extra visit for the sake of their son and brother, but this was different, yet still familiar. Stevie wasn't putting all of his lungs into it.

"I wasted a grenade on you, you fucker!" THUD. Another scream, this one even weaker. Broken. Then a gun talked, and Stevie wailed no more. This too was familiar, in a way.

"What now, Beppo?" Someone slurred.

Steps, drawing closer. Clacks of chambered rounds and metal-shod boots bounced off the walls all around him. Wet squelches as they stepped on something that belonged into a human body.

"What d'you think, fry-brains? We take over this place, fuck Megaton and double fuck the Regulators. C'mon, there can't be many more of'em Vault Boys."

It came to Hogarth that he should probably move. Crawl away to... somewhere. Somewhere else? An insistent voice kept urging him so. But... he was so tired. Maybe...

"There were loads of Talons at the cave t'day. Ain't the big cog door there?"

 _Hog, RUN!_

With a titanic effort, his eyelids cracked open, but all he could see were sparkling broken lamps and a damp ceiling. A single drop fell on his face from a damaged pipe. That one would be a bitch to repair...

"Yeah, and it'll still be there. Fucking Talons don't have a smart bone in their bodies."

Amata's voice urged him again and again. Hog tried to roll over, but the pain riveted his back to the floor. His limbs flailed and flopped like dead snails.

 _'Easier said than done, A.'_

"Look, Boss! Over there! Another Vault Rat!"

The click of bullets being chambered reached him. Hogarth squeezed his eyes shut, shaking with impotence and fear as he waited for the bang and the bullets. The Old Levels came alive with gunfire.

Strangled screams and howling cries followed short bursts from some really big guns. None were his own. Bodies impacted the floor hard, sending vibrations coursing up and down his body. He was still alive, somehow. Adrenaline surged, but it was all he could do to flop on his belly like a dead fish… and immediately regret it, when his mangled hand was squeezed between his body and the pavement.

Unconsciousness came and went in lapses of agony awash with the staccato of rifles and the flashes of muzzles. The smells of death reached him, thick and choking, a mixed blessing and curse both. Hogarth lapsed into unconsciousness again and the next thing he knew, there were hands dragging him, grabbing under his armpits. A few moments later, he realized the shooting had ceased. The smell only intensified.

"Damn, he's heavy," a woman huffed. The smaller hands left him and he flopped back down bonelessly with a grunt. Then his head hit the floor, and the world behind his eyelids exploded in a thousand burning stars.

"Ah, sorry there."

"Not enough time for courtesy." Another voice cut down the first. A man's, older. Bigger hands too, paws that lifted him like he weighed nothing. The world spun, then went upside down and Hog's face was full of coarse tissue and something dry that got into his mouth and nose. He sneezed and coughed, but at least it kept out the smell of death. "Watch the rear, Lucy."

"You're smothering him, sir."

A grunt of acknowledgment and he was shifted around by huge hands like a sack of potatoes, but then the pain was so encompassing all he wanted was to shut his eyes against it and hope, _pray_ it'd just end. He forced them open instead, his ears filled with his own ragged wheezes and the thundering crash of running feet.

A coarse beard was so close he could have counted every single hair if they weren't such a bushy, blurry mess. Hog's head rested on the man's shoulder, flopping with every step. There was an arm under his knees, another around his shoulders. It was like being a kid again, with Grandma Palmer lulling him to sleep. The voice that emerged from that forest of facial hair was far more cavernous than the old woman's ever was.

"You'll be alright, son. Hang on tight."

He caught a whiff of warm air. Blinding light filled his vision with black spots. Then the world fell away.

0 = TTL = 0

 _This concludes the first Arc of The Thin Line, Buried. Longest intro to a story I've ever written but hey, Fallout 3 prologue never did sit right by me. Nor did most of the main story, or the characters motivations. And yet I still love this game for its own merits and for having introduced me to the series._

 _But I'm still going to shuffle the pieces around. Mostly to answer questions like 'what do they eat?' and to work in stuff Fallout 4 established as canon (ish)._ _Do expect the chapters from her onwards to follow a longer format, like MiA's._

 _A big thank you to anyone who's stuck by the story this far. If you want to stick around, consider following the story. And don't forget to drop a_ _ **review**_ _._


	8. Atom I: Guests from Out of Town

_AN: Here we go, ladies and gentlemen, with a longer, more consistent format. Expect a lot of curve balls from this moment onward._

 _My thanks to everyone who read this story, we've passed the 1000 views headstone! Special thanks to_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel**_ _,_ _ **The Desert Dancer**_ _,_ _ **Paladin Delta**_ _,_ _ **MangoBait**_ _and_ _ **Pro Assassin**_ _for their reviews._

 **Atom I: Guests from Out of Town.**

Megaton had yet to stir when Lucy West finally padded up the slope leading up to the walls of the town.

Harsh winds cut into her, blowing from the north. She wrapped the oversized Regulator duster closer around her body, breathing through a scarf to keep the dirt out. Her fingers were numbing around the stock of the HKG3, index finger fidgeting inside the trigger guard.

Navigating Springvale had been an exercise in frayed nerves and jumping at shadows. After that, on top of everything else that happened in the span of a few hours, Lucy was ready to call it a night, toss her duster on a nail and collapse on her bed.

She got off the main path some hundred yards off the main road instead, waved a hand up in salute to Stockholm's perch and then walked along the outer fence of the Stahls' brahmin corral in quick steps, five times the size of the one up at home in Arefu. Light and the waft of tobacco carried out of the guards' shack, together with Jericho's barking laugh chopped by the wind.

She sent a quick thank you to the Heavens for small mercies and moved up closer to the walls to get out of the wind, hiking up the collar of her duster and sending a quick glance over her shoulder. Once assured the coast was clear, she coasted along the even ground until she reached the new stretch of future farmland being enclosed into the town's perimeter.

Slabs of fuselage and airline parts were already riveted together over nearly half of the prepared foundations, making for a complete wall to the north jutting out of the main perimeter at a near ninety degrees angle. More parts were heaped about the construction yard, waiting to be worked in.

She knew the Children, who made up most of the workers, only got up at first light; still, Lucy released a breath of relief when the silhouette who detached from the gap in the walls turned out to be the duster and eyepatch of Billy Creel and not the consumed rags of Confessor Cromwell.

"Sup, Lucy? Sheriff's not with you?"

Lucy shot another look around, but they were alone. Shaking her head, she inched closer.

"We cleared out Beppo's gang and found their tunnel, but something came up." She twisted her fingers into a bird's talon, signed 1-0-1, then clasped one hand around her other wrist. "I'm fetching Moira."

In the dim light of his lantern, she saw his eyebrows disappear under the bandana wrapped snugly around his head. His hand found the revolver at his hip and remained there.

"Quick then," he warned. "Dawn ain't half an hour off. Better get out before the Children spot you two together."

She kept to the high walkways, skirting around the edge of town at a light jog. She gave Moriarty's Saloon and the Church of the Atom a wide berth and answered only with wordless waves to the other Regulators on patrol she met, quickly brushing past. Megaton slumbered, nobody but guards and Regulators in the streets and on the walkways. Even the Brass Lantern's windows were still dark.

Five minutes later, she was knocking softly on at the Craterside Supplies' door, one eye to the sky, the other to the fresh graffiti decorating the shop's walls, another batch of _Atom's curse upon_ _you_ and _May the Darkness find you_. No answer came from within.

She knocked again. "Moira? It's Lucy. I need to speak with you."

The eye bolt on the armored door slid open and gray eyes regarded her suspiciously.

"We're closed," a male voice told her with a thick Russian accent.

"Andrej, it's important," Lucy said. "I need a doctor."

"Doc Church is down the road."

"I can't. Simms asked for Moira. You'll be paid."

Andrej studied her, then the echo of a baby's sniffles grew closer, muffled and accompanied by cooing sounds.

"Hush Brian, it was only a bad dream. Mommy's here, and Daddy's too. Here, put a smile on Daddy's face!"

The eyebolt slid close and the next thirty seconds were all a chatter of locks opening, latches unlatching and bars sliding. Lucy tapped a foot on the platform, then cursed under her breath when she noticed the lights switching on behind the Church's shutters.

The door cracked open, revealing a disheveled Moira staring out at her from behind several chains still keeping the door secure.

"Ehi, Lucy," she greeted with a stiff smile. "Sorry, Brian had another nightmare. What can I do for you?"

"We have a wounded man in Springvale. He's doing badly."

Her eyebrows twitched in interest, but Lucy could see the wariness etching early lines on her face.

"Can't you take him to Church?" She suppressed a yawn. "It's still a tad bit too early for me."

"Sheriff wants to play it safe after last time. He's a Vaultie."

"Oh," Moira hesitated, realization and curiosity warring with caution on her face, then chuckled. "Yep, Church's sooo not an option. Let me take my stuff."

"Make it quick!" Lucy called after he as the door slammed shut. Faint sounds reached her from inside, two voices arguing, but she couldn't make out any words. She rummaged in her pocket and fished out a crooked cigarette, then shoved it back into the bottom, balling her fingers into a fist.

Above the walls, the black sky acquired the faintest dusting of pink and orange.

 _'Come on!'_ She really, really could do without the Children and their antics that morning. If only Moira would hurry up!

The woman in question wiggled out of Craterside Supplies a few minutes later, jumpsuit on and a bulging doctor's bag hidden under a coat. She stopped and kissed her son Brian in her husband's arms on the forehead, then stamped a good one of the sour man as well. It was the only moment his glare left Lucy, or his hand the SMG at his hip.

"Off we go!" Moira chirped, spreading a cowl across her face. "Where did you put him?"

"Silver's old place." Moira's grimace mirrored her own. "I know, but it was the closest place to the School with a proper bed. The less we carried him, the better."

"That bad?"

"You'll see for yourself."

Lucy led Moira through the catwalks as dawn tinted the sky a dozen different colors. Halfway to the construction yard, Moira tucked at Lucy's duster's sleeve: the echoes of distant prayer reached her a moment later.

Down below, in the middle of the crater, the Confessor was already leading the first round of morning prayers, a dozen or so people kneeling in the Holy Waters of Atom. More were already hiking up the slope with their tools to the construction yard, situated much closer to their end of town. Lucy spotted Mother Maya in the lead: soft-spoken and gentle as the elderly woman was, there was no chance she wouldn't recognize Moira and alert the whole of town and Cromwell of their goings.

"Main door it is."

They lucked out, somewhat. At dawn, the guard at the Stahls' corral shifted: Lucy and Moira found the gate already opening, the turbine whirring up a racket and Leo Stahl sharing a morning drink with two of the family's workers.

"Hey, Lucy! Join us for a sip!"

Lucy didn't stop and dragged Moira through the inner gate the moment the gap was wide enough, praying in her head her luck would hold.

It didn't. Jericho was waiting outside, of course. His eyes were bloodshot and a foul breath of alcohol and cheap tobacco invested her when he smiled a smile of crooked, rotten teeth.

"Now now, where are you going so early, girlie?" He regarded Moira with a sneer. "And in _such_ good company too?"

"Fuck off, you two-bit raider."

"One day I'll take your word for it and peel that duster off you. And you'll like it. Oh, you will like that a lot."

Lucy glared at him and the ex- raider's smile turned nastier, predatory. Gritting her teeth, she swallowed a comeback and brushed past him, refraining from bumping into him out of sheer disgust. Jericho didn't stop them, though she heard a few lewd appellatives called after her.

She knew he was all bluster and poisoned liver, that he'd never follow through with any of his threats and suggestions. Moriarty's right hand or not, the Regulators would have his balls on a platter in hours. Still, a shiver found its way down her spine as she felt his gaze following her down the path.

0 * TTL * 0

Springvale was as deserted at dawn as it had been an hour before. Just as dead too, now that most of Beppo's gang was rotting somewhere in the bowels of Vault 101. Still, the going was slow and careful. Lucy kept looking at the scenic overlook halfway up the nearby hill, dreading the appearance of black-clad silhouettes or worse.

Moira caught up quickly. "What's up with the extra carefulness? I thought we were on a time limit?"

Lucy shrugged. "The Sheriff will tell you everything. Just… we'll be better off if we avoid any Talons for a while."

"And how's that any different from any other day of the week?"

"Look, it's a long story. We're almost there anyway."

Silver's house hadn't always been Silver's house. Actually, it was a rather recent thing, less than a couple weeks old: one of Colin Moriarty's workers, a woman named Silver, had made off with caps and chems in quantity and holed up in Springvale. The Irish man hadn't taken the slight well, as he rarely did.

He set Jericho on her trail. The ex-raider had returned to Megaton less than a day later with the haul of stolen goods and a tale of having found Silver still warm, one too many Psycho needles plunged into her arm. The Regulators followed his indications, verified the story and then buried her in the backyard, deep enough neither molerats nor cannibals would find her anytime soon.

Everyone knew Jericho had overdosed her. He was too smug by half to be any other way, but the man wasn't stupid enough to admit it, even in his cups. Simms had stopped Billy and her from proceeding without any scrap of proof: such were the Regulators' rules. The feeling of impotent frustration had haunted her ever since.

The crude cross was still where she remembered it. So was the house and with no Talons in sight, Lucy stepped through the sandbags fortifications and rapped sharply on the door. Three, then four, then one. The blink of a barrel disappeared from behind one of the boarded windows and the deadbolt clicked open.

"Come in quick."

Lucy ushered Moira in, did another rapid perimeter scan, then filed in, shut the door behind her and latched the bolts.

"Lucas! Lucy told me you picked up a Vaultie. Another stray? Does he have an extra Pip-Boy? I still have the last one's suit at home for the complete set."

The Sheriff had discarded his duster revealing bulging biceps under a ripped shirt. The cowboy hat still decorated his head.

"Not quite," he grumbled, leading the way into the back of the house. A single naked light bulb cast a cold light above the bed, impressing the particles of dust in the still air. Moira gasped. "We picked him up from the Vault: Beppo and his rubble managed to dig a way in."

"Jesus," Moira breathed, then set her doctor's bag on a nearby table, rolled her sleeves up to the elbow and slid on a pair of clean blue gloves. "I'll need a hand here, Lucy. He's pretty banged up. They went hard on him."

Lucy set her rifle against the wall, then approached the bed carefully. The Vaultie was laying on his belly, his head turned to the side, arms spread wide. The clothes on his back were rent by a long black line that stank of burned flesh and nearly all the fingers of one hand were bent beyond recognition. He was pale, too. Very pale, and sweating profusely. That was never a good sign.

"We need to peel the clothes off him," Moira said. "If he's been in a Vault all his life any infection could be lethal and that's a bad burn."

Lucy exchanged a glance with Simms, voicing a silent question, but the Sheriff's face was as inscrutable as a cliff's face. He nodded at her to continue and Lucy obeyed.

It was slow going and Lucy felt mostly useless. Moira cut the cloth around the wound and discarded the torn shirt, then washed the cauterized, angry red line and started removing burned pieces of shirt from it with tweezers. Every odd minute she'd call for a medication from her bag; Lucy would give it to her and she'd accept it without looking, tongue sticking out of her lips in concentration.

All that time, Lucy kept glancing at the Vaultie's face. He was young, younger than her. He was also obviously in a lot of pain: his breaths came in shallow gasps and wheezes, face scrunched up in tight lines. Gingerly, she grabbed the necessary support for several splinters from the bag and touched his mangled hand. She's done something similar for her brother once when he'd fallen from the roof after too much star-gazing and her parents had wanted to teach her. She looked at the Vaultie again: yep, she could see the resemblance, vague as it was, with Ian.

She grabbed the index into her curled fist and steadied his hand with her other, then she waited for Moira to lift the tweezers and wrenched the snapped joint back in alignment with a single movement.

He grunted in his sleep, his whole body twitching. Then Moira tutted, probing the burn wound again like it was a curious specimen, a frown on her face.

"Later for that. He needs a shot of antibiotics now, then we'll wrap up the wounds. Dunno if I have enough for him to recover. I might have to make more."

"Will he wake up?" The Sheriff asked from his spot on the doorsill.

"Yep. The question is how lucid he'll be. He's running a fever." A blindly outstretched hand probed at Lucy. "Lucy, the green syringe, please. Should be somewhere at the bottom."

Lucy rolled her eyes and started rummaging in Moira's bag. Inside, it was pure chaos, bottles of pills and half used rolls of bandages, needleless syringes and more. She found two green syringes a few moments later, thick liquid sloshing inside in different hues, but the labels were Moira's chicken scrawl she could make out not a word of.

She held the first syringe up in the clinic light; squinting, she was fairly certain of the word _anti_ -something. Moira's blind hand was still outstretched in waiting, so she uncorked the needle and placed it in her open palm.

Moira's fingers closed around it and the needle pierced the flesh on the Vaultie's back, the plunger lowering slowly. Halfway empty, Moira finally glanced at what was in her hand.

Lucy saw her face morph in confusion, then shock. The thumb stopped pushing on the plunger and her lips made a small O of surprise.

"Oh."

Simms pushed himself away from the wall, frowning. "What, Moira?"

The woman gave a little, nervous laugh, the hand holding the syringe completely still. There was a strange, delirious light dancing in her eyes.

"We may, ah, have tiny little bit of a problem. Like, a big one."

The Vaultie screamed.

Lucy jumped back with a yelp, landing on her arse and fumbling for the N99 at her hip. Moira removed the plunger and backed off as the Vaultie started thrashing on the bed, his body hiccupping violently. The springs in the mattress and the metal bed began to protest loudly.

"Hold him down! Quick quick!"

Simms cursed, let go of his rifle and grabbed the Vaultie by the shoulders, levering his own considerable weight to pin the thrashing Vaultie down.

"Lucy, the door! What the bloody fuck did you do to him? If this is another one of your hare-brained experiments -"

The Vaultie screamed again. His muscles were bulging, growing, the veins across his bare arms and face standing out and glowing a dull green.

Lucy stood frozen in place. Moira actually gave another little, panicky laugh as she rummaged elbows deep into her bag. "Maybe? Wasn't mine, pinky swear. That syringe shouldn't have been here, I must have grabbed the wrong bag. Now, where is it?"

"Make him stop!" Simms thundered, face tightly drawn and muscles stretching with effort. "There are dozens of Talons up that hill looking for him, they'll hear us all the way to Fort Bannister!"

Moira's hands stopped. She brought a finger to tap her lips and realization crept on her face as if stemming from memory. "Oh, right. I left it back at the lab. Blimey."

The Vaultie kept thrashing and writhing in Simm's grasp, his face contorting in pain and… something else. His eyes shot open and Lucy stared at the milky white pupils rolling around, green veins stretching across and bursting, hueing the sclera red and green. His hair remained glued to the pillow and sheets, falling out by the handful and showing a coarse skull underneath, the skin blistering and popping.

Lucy felt bile travel up her gullet.

"What - what's happening to him?"

Moira chewed on the nail of her thumb frantically, her eyes locked on the Vaultie in wide-eyed fascination. Loud crunches and cracks echoed: Lucy stared as the digits of his mangled hand snapped brusquely back in position. The angry glare of the burn across his back dimmed to a sickly green, yet the muscles knitted together and green flesh stretched over the wound, closing it as if it hadn't been there in the first place.

"He might be, ah, turning into a Super Mutant?"

Simms startled and jumped away as if the touch burned him. Lucy's jaw fell with an audible pop.

"WHAT?"

Then click of a chambered round was the first sound that broke through the Vaultie's screams. The Sheriff leveled his rifle at Moira, the sun-beaten face behind his beard a mask of tightly controlled fury.

"How?"

Moira didn't lift her hand in the air, rather she stepped closer to the Vaultie. His thrashing was relenting, his voice hoarse from all the shouting.

"Ehrm... It's a long story? Yep, very, very long. And old." Moira thrilled a nervous chuckle, then cleared her throat. "I was given it while ago for safe keeping, sort of. I didn't know it even worked until now. Look, can't we just -"

"No," Simms growled. He took a step forward. "Speak."

Lucy's N99 cleared its holster, her grip steady despite her sweating hands.

"Sheriff? He's changing… again."

The hybrid thing that was bulging out of the Vaultie's ripped clothes, a mass of green muscles and jagged, poorly sculpted features, groaned, then started to shrink. Body mass fell off him like his hair had, withering and flash-decomposing in a matter of seconds until nothing remained. The bestial edges of his new features softened like clay and warped, the enormous jaw receding to more human proportions. His head remained bald, but the skin smoothed out across the scalp. Green steadily receded from his complexion, steadily replaced by a healthy, fleshy pink.

The process couldn't have taken more than a minute. The heavy silence only shattered when the bed sighed in relief and Lucy found herself mirroring it, her finger easing off the trigger of her gun. The Vaultie's body was matter in sweat, but his chest rose and fell steadily, breath regular and easy.

Simms recovered first, a winter storm rampaging over his entire composure. "I want to know what the fuck just happened, Moira."

The woman _giggled_. "I - I don't know! I've never seen anything like this! This - this is astounding! I need to take samples, run some tests! It could be the solution -"

The barrel of Simms' gun nudged her in the shoulder. "Slow down, you crazy head. You're not touching him. Hell, you're not leaving this fucking house until I know what's what. Move."

Moira made to reply, face giddy with excitement, then she saw Simms' glare. She gulped and swallowed her words, her hands tormenting each other in her lap. She took a chance.

"But the possibilities -"

" _Move_." Moira deflated and cast one last longing look at the Vaultie like he was some prize brahmin or something. The hair on the back of Lucy's neck rose in discomfort, but she slowly holstered her gun.

"Lucy, manacle him up to the bed and stay here," the Sheriff called from the other room. "I'll run a perimeter check. Let's hope they haven't noticed us."

Simms followed his own advice: Lucy heard his manacles snap close and Moira huff somewhere in the house. Carefully, her mind still reeling from _what the hell just happened here_ , she retrieved her set of manacles from her belt and approached the sleeping Vaultie.

She hesitated and studied him for long moments, taking extra care he was indeed sleeping and not feigning. Then she scooped up his wrists, part of her marveling at the state of his hand and at the Pip-boy around his wrist. There was blood seeping out from under it, but the clasp held. She considered removing it, then shook her head and snapped the manacles around one wrist, slipped the short chain around the decorative gaps of the headboard and repeated the process for his other wrist.

The front door inched open and Lucy caught the tail end of the Sheriff's duster as he disappeared outside. She could hear Moira mumbling to herself in the other room, but Lucy decided to leave her to her own devices for now. She picked up the guilty syringe from the nearby table instead, gingerly examining the remaining green liquid before placing the cork back on it and dropping the thing into the taking maws of Moira's doctor bag.

Then she sat down on the armchair, rifle in her lap and ears straining for the telling sounds of gunfire.

0 * TTL * 0

The rising sun found the Citadel's courtyard abuzz with preparations for the imminent arrival of the Midwestern Brotherhood's delegation.

Sarah Lyons observed the coming and going of Scribes and Knights from the window of her father's room. She knew she'd have to leave shortly and head over to the Den, where her Power Armour and the rest of the Lyons Pride was arming up for the parade. Yet she took a moment to enjoy the cool breeze on her face, a brief, selfish break from her responsibilities.

Her father's scratching voice shook her gently back to reality.

"It's getting late."

She turned to him then and the familiar pang of sorrow stabbed her in the chest. Owyn Lyons, Elder of the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel, her father, met her gaze from the bed, his clear and sharp eyes contrasting the visible tremor of his hands and the sickly shade of his face.

"I know, dad. Do you have everything you need?"

His chuckle was rueful and weak. "Reginald's Scribes fuss over me enough already, Sarah. I'll be fine." Gingerly, he patted the chessboard already set on his nightstand and hiding the many bottles of pills. "Cross will be here soon for my daily humiliation. She'll help me get ready. Your men are waiting for you."

Sarah took his hand in hers for a few, long moments. He squeezed back and she gave the room another once over, to make sure everything was where it needed to be.

The naked feeling of wrong when she looked back at her father almost choked her.

 _'He shouldn't be bedridden. It's too soon. He should be out there, with everyone else.'_

"Go, Sarah. I'll be fine."

She nodded and walked away, the blue and white uniform heavier on her shoulders that any suit of Power Armour. On the door, her father's voice stopped her cold.

"Do you resent me for Arthur's promotion?"

She stiffened in surprise and immediately chastised herself for the reaction. There was no chance her father had missed it. She took a small breath, uncurled her hand from the doorknob and turned around, schooling her expression with effort.

"He's a Maxson and he's a Paladin at least as good as I am," she spelled out slowly. "Being Sentinel will ready him for... For when his time comes." She forced out a small smile, fixing it on her face under her father's sharp scrutiny. "It's good for him and good for the Brotherhood as a whole. And I still have the Pride. It's only a rank."

"You worked hard to get it."

 _'Not hard enough to keep it.'_ "He did too. Our Brothers from Chicago and the Outcasts will appreciate the shift if it has placated jackasses like Artemis. It was the right choice. He is the right choice."

The corridors of the Citadel were as alive as the courtyard, if not more. Sarah navigated the maze almost absently, nodding at salutes and greetings. The easy respect her Brothers and Sisters regarded her with was a balm to her troubles - her selfish, childish woes, unbefitting a member of the Brotherhood of Steel - but the wings of Star Paladin clipped to her new uniform almost burned on her chest.

She had lied to her father, again. The demotion from Sentinel, even if announced with a large margin and rationalized several times, annoyed her and wounded her pride. It didn't matter that she knew Arthur would become the next Elder: she didn't care for the position, only that a worthy man would take it. Arthur was one such man and more. No, she had been sincere in her opinion of him.

But as much as she'd known all of it, she saw the demotion as an unnecessary affront. Father had broken the Order's structure more than once, assigning Knights to combat duty against tradition when the lack of manpower started to cripple their Chapter. The Records were full of instances of Star Paladins and Head Paladins promoted directly to the rank of Elder.

What was the point of taking her rank away from her?

She had more than one answer ready to pounce: from pleasing Protector McGraw and his Outcast into mending relations to re-establishing positive contacts with Lost Hills and the Western Brotherhood, or what remained of them yet. The last one-way communication from the West Coast Elders spoke of entire bunkers exterminated all over California by the NCR and their so-called Iron General. It also issued a recall order to all units, which was ignored when no answer came to their own inquiries.

That had been over a year ago. Ever since then, any communication had fallen on dead lines.

By the time she walked into the Den, her thoughts were once more running in circles. She pushed the knots to the back of her mind to unravel and let the familiar comfort of her unit envelop her.

The Pride couldn't have been bestowed a more befitting name. The best fighters in the Brotherhood's roster bar two, she'd grown up and trained her whole life with most of them: a student to some, like Gallows and Glade, at least at first; a fellow Initiate with Koilak, Colvin, and Dusk. She's surpassed each and every one of them at some point, however, clawing her way to the top on her own strength rather than on her father's name. Such was the way of the Brotherhood. The Pride reflected and embodied that twofold.

"Star Paladin," they greeted her, snapping to attention. She waved at them to stand down.

"Pride, how are we doing?"

"You're the only one out of armor, Sarah," Glade said as he sat back at his game of dices with Dusk and Kodiak.

"We're hot, locked and ready to kick some muties in the Potomac," the towering black Paladin added. He peeked under his plastic cup and smirked up at Dusk. "Four sixes."

"Screw it. This I want to see." Kodiak removed the cup with a flourish, revealing three sixes. Dusk chuckled, then Glade lifted his cup to reveal the fourth one, a neutral look plastered on his face. Kodiak's smirk widened to a full shit-eating grin when Dusk started cussing up a storm. The handful of caps thrown in his face didn't dim it one bit.

Sarah suppressed a grin and went to her locker, quickly slipping out of her dress uniform until she remained only in a tank top and shorts. She kept an ear to the brewing argument at the game table as she returned the uniform to its hanger and took out her suit of recon armor. The thin metal plates on the suit had been polished to a shine, even if nobody could see them once she donned the Power Armour; all the links meant to connect her to her suit had been checked for efficiency twice the day before as well. Everything needed to be as close to perfect efficiency as possible, be it a welcome parade or an expedition in the ruins of D.C.

As she zipped the recon armor up, Knight-Captain Colvin approached with thudding steps. She couldn't help but notice and appreciate one more the Knight's devotion to his faith: they'd returned from a foray into D.C. only two days before, but there was no trace on his armor of the several knocks he'd taken when a frag grenade went off feet away from him. The plates had been replaced or smoothed and the Knight's minute, elegant calligraphy covered nearly all the available surface in lines and quotes from the Holy Book. He had his helmet clipped to the armor's magnetic belt, revealing a buzz cut atop placid eyes and a long face.

"Ma'am."

"Timothy, at ease," she urged him, and the Knight's posture eased somewhat. She recognized the small frown etched between his brows from the many nights he'd spend at the small altar he'd erected beside his bunk. "What's on your mind?"

"Our Midwestern Brothers, ma'am. I can't help but ponder about their interpretation of the Codex. I have to confess being conflicted about today."

"You and I both." Sarah glanced around and noticed the game of dice had died down and the entire Pride was following their conversation. Only Gallows kept working on repurposing an AER12 rifle, but she knew he didn't miss a word or movement in the entire room. "Anyone else has two pennies to put on the table?"

"I get the reasoning, Sarah," Vargas said, shutting his D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine. "We broke from the Codex. They did too, and they have the numbers we need to push back the Super Mutants." The Paladin grimaced. "But I say there's a big bloody difference between helping here and recruiting ghouls and mutants."

"We fight fire with fire, Taskmaster," Dusk addressed Vargas, sipping from a bottle of Nuka Cola. "If the muties want to take the bullets for us, I say we let them."

"You're too young to remember California," Glade interjected, shooting the sniper woman a sidelong look. "There's a reason we shoot mutants and don't befriend them, even when they speak more than 'Me mutant kill human harr harr'."

"It worked for them for decades," Kodiak pointed out. "And there were those who wanted to kill me and the rest of Pitt children. We can give them a chance."

"It's not the same, Greg," Vargas shook his head. "It's not the bloody same. You're human, like me and everyone else here."

"I remember California," Sarah said, stepping up to the middle of the room. "I remember the stories of the Master's army and what we risked. We all know them. What _we_ don't know is what Elder Williams and the rest of the Midwestern Brotherhood went through after their airships crashed."

She turned around and slowly looked every one of her men in the eye. There was absolute trust among every one of them: she'd readily die for any person in the Den and the knowledge it was mutual made her words ring true and strong.

She stopped at Vargas, challenging her second in command with a look. "Elder Lyons broke from the Codex after the Pitt and we followed him. Everything we've sacrificed these past twenty years, it's been to amend for our crimes there as an organization. Until we get the full story, hold your horses. Otherwise, we're no better than the Outcasts."

"And if breaking the Codex again bothers you so much, remember this is Sentinel Maxson's idea," Kodiak pointed out, rising to his feet in a whirring of servo motors. "He embodies the Will of Steel, he's the last of his line. The Codex is what he makes of it."

0 * TTL * 0

Dusk spotted the shape emerging from a cloud bank to the West a split second before Colvin did and two full seconds before the drill siren blared twice, on cue with the radar's sensor pickup. Sarah didn't doubt the two snipers would argue and trade barbs for the next several weeks on who had noticed first, or at the very least until some other dubious challenge took over their competitive streak.

At the edge of the landing pad, Arthur Maxson lifted the ceremonial sword in a silent order. All chatter died down in the courtyard, but the wordless exclamation of awe from the Initiates' ranks at the back and the Scribes carried easily to the front, spreading like a contagion nobody was immune to.

One glance at Arthur's back, even wrapped in power armor as he was, told Sarah all she needed to know.

In the distance, the Zeppelin abandoned the cover of the clouds and veered towards the Citadel. As the minutes bled by, what was a mostly indistinct silhouette started to acquire shape and detail, growing ever closer. She estimated its length around one hundred feet, maybe a few more.

Soon enough, the airship cast its shadow over the Citadel's courtyard, delivering cool relief from the sweltering heat. Necks craned up to look better, Sarah's among everyone else's. Up close, the Zeppelin went past the one-hundred-and-twenty feet headstone, the underbelly deck structure almost tiny compared to the bulging smooth aerostatic balloon.

Painted in blue letters along its broadside, she made out the ship's name: _Albatross._ A small part of her sighed in disappointed, expecting a more grandiose name for something straight out of another generation of the Brotherhood regarded in some circles more as myth and story than history.

Then the Albatross started to lose altitude steadily, growing bigger and wider with every moment, like a mountain threatening to fall over. She heard more than saw several Knights and Paladins take a step or two back in reflex before discipline reasserted itself and they returned to formation.

The massive ship alighted almost softly and several Brothers in heavy drab fatigues jumped down from the lower deck as soon as the zeppelin steadied. All of them had their faces covered in helmets, goggles and heavy scarfs not leaving an inch of skin exposed; behind them, they dragged heavy coils of rope and steel cables they tied to the concrete anchors that had been placed all around the landing pad.

Arthur lifted his sword again.

"Brotherhood! Present arms!"

The Brotherhood obeyed. Then she heard the entire Chapter hold its collective breath when the first ghoul made himself known. She wasn't ashamed to admit she was squarely in their numbers, despite her words in the Den. From the first line just behind Maxson, where she stood in line with the rest of the Pride, she enjoyed a prime view.

He walked straight-backed as any soldier between two others down the main ramp lowered from the Albatross. Fatigues not dissimilar to the other Brothers' only left a flayed, burned-over face exposed under an officer's hat she remembered from her studies. Several medals and rank plaques decorated his shoulders and chest, the largest of which a silver cross emblazoned with the Brotherhood symbol.

The other two, in comparison, were almost too casually familiar: a Paladin Commander led the trio in a suit of T-51 painted grey and brown; his helmet rested in the crook of his arm, revealing a large face that managed to look sharp nonetheless, greying hair just beginning to recede and a combed goatee.

Sarah assessed the last member of the trio, a rail-thin man in an ensemble of coat, armor and an oxygen tank of all things protruding from his back, as a Scribe, or at least the closest equivalent to a Scribe the Midwestern Brotherhood held. Their erstwhile Brothers had been extremely tight-lipped over comms, promising to reveal more face to face.

The Paladin strode up to Arthur and clasped a fist to his chest, bowing deeply. The other two mirrored him, the ghoul as flawless ad the Scribe.

"Sentinel Maxson, it's an honour to finally meet you. I'm Paladin Commander Teagan, at your service. My companions are Proctor Quinlan and Lancer Captain Kells, commanding officer of the Albatross. Elder Williams sends her regards."

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: I reckon the Prydwen in F4 is the approximate size of a LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, around 780 feet in length. Maybe even closer to the Hindenburg. The Albatross and the rest of the Midwestern fleet is made of MUCH smaller blimps and aircrafts._

 _King Artorious Pendragon Maxson is 23 when this scene takes place. Yep, I've made him thirteen years older and a Sentinel of the Brotherhood. I'd love to hear what you think about it - and the rest of the chapter - in a **review**._

 _Thank you all for reading._


	9. Atom II: Awakenings

**Atom II: Awakenings.**

He was sleeping. Then he wasn't.

The change was as abrupt as it was jarring. Hogarth blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling of butchered plaster, then blinked again as the fog around his brain dispelled some and he registered the light warming his face when all he could recollect a moment before was the cold and dampness of the tunnels.

"Sheriff! He's awake!"

He shot out of bed at the voice, a thousand thoughts and memories racing and chasing each other in front of his eyes, obfuscating reality. At least, he tried.

A chain rattled and his shoulders pulled back painfully over his head, stopping him mid-movement. Momentum slammed his back on a mattress with a complaining screech from the springs. Then there were hands on his shoulders. Big hands and a face covered in a coarse beard that tugged at something dim and half-forgotten but remained otherwise unfamiliar.

"Calm down, son. You've been out for -."

Hogarth head-butted him.

Cartilage crunched against his forehead and warm, sticky blood sprayed him in the face, getting in his eyes. The big black man cursed in surprise, stepping back and cupping his face. Hogarth snarled, half-blind; he twisted his head away and pulled to the protest of the manacles, expecting the click of a collar snapping shut at any moment.

He heard the click of a hammer instead. A cold barrel pressed against his temple.

"One move and I open you a new one!" the other man barked. He was younger and smoother, missing an eye, but he wore the same cowboy duster as the other one and the gun in his hand looked and felt dangerous enough. "Sheriff, you alright?"

The black man spat a fat glob of blood and saliva, then reset his nose with a sharp crack and a grunt. "Damn it. Never met a Vaultie who bit like a wild dog before." He spat again.

The one-eyed guy guffawed. "Talk about bloody gratitude, eh?"

"Who the fuck are you? Talon?" Hogarth bit out, eyes moving between the men with their strange clothes and the gun pointed at his head. "You work for Burke?"

"Language, kid," One-Eye said. "You're the bound one and we're the guys with the guns here."

"Enough, Billy," the Sheriff grumbled. He stepped up to the bed again, clear out of reach this time, and fixed Hogarth with a searching gaze.

"I'm Sheriff Lucas Simms, son. I carried you out of that Vault before the Talons got their claws on you."

 _'Wha -'_

His vision spun.

"O-Outside? Like in - Outside the Vault? The outside world?"

That earned him a puzzled look. "You don't remember anything?"

Hogarth gulped, the fight ebbing out of him. Fragments and shadows danced across his senses: crawling, gunfire, Grandma Palmer's head, being picked up, Amata's shouting... all mixed in a tangled web that exploded behind his eyes. He winced, shutting his eyes against the pain and against the warm caress on his face that could only be -

"Where am I?" His eyes shot open and he jerked to the side until the barrel was pressed in the middle of his forehead. More fragments of memories slammed into place. "Anybody else got out?!" The Talons couldn't have gathered everyone, there were too many people in the Vault -

Sheriff Simms shook his head, wiping the rest of the blood off his face with a towel. "We barely got out with you, son. I'm sorry."

The bottom of his stomach plummeted under a wave of despair. He swallowed again, wincing as the bindings pulled his arms up. His already dry throat seized up at the clink of metal against metal.

"So what?" he croaked out. He cleared his throat, licking his lips. "Am I _your_ slave then?"

The bear of a man blinked, taken aback. One-Eye Billy scoffed indignantly.

"We ain't Talons, kid. Decent folk like us don't deal in that shit. The manacles are for your safety, in case you came up with more stupid antics like before. You kinda proved our point."

What shame he felt was short-lived. But if he apologized, maybe they'd take the bindings off? "Sorry about that. You can take them off now."

"No more lashing out?"

Hogarth nodded.

Billy glanced at the Sheriff, from which Hogarth determined who was in charge of whom. Simms studied him for a while, eyes raking him over as if he expected to find something strange, like a third arm growing out of his navel or something. Then he nodded.

"Careful," Billy admonished once the manacles were off and Hogarth made to get up, rubbing his wrist to get the blood flowing again. "You've been out for a week, kid. Take it easy."

Hogarth balked, the words hitting him like a slap. "A _week_? What happened? Are the Talons still in the Vault? Did they -"

"One thing at a time, son," Simms urged. Hogarth noticed for the first time the barrel of some kind of rifle poking out from under his duster. "We'll tell you everything we know, but you go first."

Hogarth gritted his teeth, his hands balling up so tightly the joints popped like firecrackers. He frowned at the sound, a recondite, burning part of his memory tugging at him, whispering that something was wrong, yet he felt fine. Not good, but physically, he couldn't remember ever feeling more vigorous. He broke out of the brief rumination when finally registered the room around him.

It was small, almost cramped. The bed he sat on was springy, hard and dirty, yet it took the long wall; a light bulb dangled from a short cable over his head, casting a guttering light. There was a foldable chair against the far wall and a locker against the head of the bed. The place was clean, yet there were rust and dirt clinging to the walls.

The air smelled like nothing Hogarth could place. There was a trace of something familiar, speaking of a lived-in environment, but it was a whiff within a greater amalgamation. It wasn't pleasant, but it was different. More importantly, it wasn't cold: the air in the Vault was always chilly. Here…

The warm touch guided his wandering eyes to the gap between the two men one breath away from shooting him. He froze.

The window. Out of the room and across another, a thin, vertical blade of light glowed between two close shutters.

 _'No, not light. Sunlight.'_

"Let's start from the basics," Billy piped up and Hogarth realized he'd been staring. His teeth snapped shut with an audible click. "Name, occupation, the works."

Hogarth lifted his bare left hand, painfully aware of the missing weight. He noticed then for the first time he wasn't wearing his jumpsuit, rather some white tee with cargo pants. His feet were bare, but the floor was far from chilly. _'What the hell_?'. "Don't you have my Pip-Boy?"

"Let's hear it from your live voice."

Hogarth tried to keep the frown from his face. He'd installed more than one failsafe against unauthorized access to his Pip-Boy, both a biometric lock software and a standard alphanumerical password. Had they really cracked it? He gave the two men a poignant look. Neither looked particularly tech-savvy, but if Butch and Wally taught him anything was that appearances could deceive.

And chances were there were more of them, wherever he had been taken.

"Hogarth Mitchell. I'm nineteen, a software technician and mechanic. Robotics and maintenance." He swallowed, jaw setting with a click. "My father's the Vault physician."

"You have any other family?"

"Only a few friends." He lied. _'One.'_ "What happened to the others?"

The Sheriff sighed, rubbing a knot between his eyes that refused to ease. "You need to know, things are mighty different out here from how they're in your Vault -"

"What happened?!"

"Hey, easy. We ain't the bad guys here." Billy plopped down on the chair, his revolver held loosely in one hand. "Say, how many people lived in your Vault?"

 _'Lived?'_ "Four hundred thirty-seven by the last census," he blurted out, then shot on his feet when the man lowered his one eye to the ground. "Did you see them? Tell me!"

"We did. Most of that number, at least," Billy said after a brief glance to Simms. "Some the young men and a few women were taken West, maybe fifty in all. We think to Talon's headquarters at Fort Bannister. Another small group went South a few days ago, didn't see much of them." He sighed, scratching the back of his head and looking away. "The were a few white coats in all that black armor and doctors don't come in every day, so maybe your dad's there?" He didn't sound particularly hopeful.

"And?" Hogarth took a step forward, toward the man, the door, toward Amata's shouting echoing in his ears. "God damn it, speak!"

"They took hundreds north, past the Potomac," Simms told him, meeting Hogarth's building panic. There was pity lingering under those bushy eyebrows, tinted with suspicion and the embers of undying resolve at the same time. Every word still slammed like a fastball into Hogarth's gut. "To the slavers' capital, Paradise Falls."

0 * TTL * 0

The scraping of seats pushed back welcomed her father's entrance in the conference room. He floated noiselessly on a repurposed Mr. Handy, now acting as a wheelchair, until he drew to a stop between Arthur and her. Sarah met Cross's eyes over his shoulder and the worry eased somewhat at the stoic woman's nod.

"I apologize for the delay. These old bones are not as springy as they used to be. Please, sit everyone."

She met her father's eyes a moment later and quickly looked away. Over the bluish glow of the tactical holo-map spreading across the round table, Sarah studied the Midwestern delegation once more, but like everyone else's her gaze was soon drawn into the drab, metallic box waiting before Proctor Quinlan.

"We can begin then," Arthur announced after the Elder nodded at him. Unlike Sarah, he'd removed his Power Armour once the parade was over, donning his reinforced coat instead over his black officer jumpsuit. It made him stand out, even over the Midwesterners' peculiar choice of garb. "I speak for everyone here when I thank you for the supplies you brought on the Albatross. They'll be crucial to strike at the super mutants in the Mall and reinforce our forward positions."

Paladin Teagan nodded graciously. "It's only a small token, Sentinel, as is the crew and the Albatross itself. Once we find an agreement on... certain matters of direction and doctrine, Elder Williams is ready to contribute much more to our cause, both in terms of men and means."

"Let's speak and agree then," her father spoke, leaning forward with a small grimace. "I believe some of it at least is related to your hesitation to go into details on the comm-lines?"

Teagan exchanged a glance with his two companions, lingering on the ghoul, Captain Kells.

"Quinlan, the box."

Sarah narrowed her eyes as the thin Scribe lifted the lid and his hands disappeared inside. When they emerged again, a stunned silence stole across the table, robbing the very air of its warmth.

It was Rothchild who voiced Sarah's and everyone's thoughts, dragging a hand across his face.

"This cannot be."

Proctor Quinlan's lips were a thin, humorless line. "Oh, it can. We have four entire suits on the Albatross, together with a sample choice of the rest of their hardware."

The Proctor set the helmet on the table, disrupting a few of the buildings holographic D.C. Black and red, it narrowed in horn-like protrusions at the top and widened at the bottom. Yet it was the eyes that riveted Sarah to her seat, stirring memories half-forgotten and scare stories whispered among the Squires.

Four and yellow, like a bug's.

 _Enclave._

"Stella, if you'd be so kind." There was a tremor in her father's voice, barely reined in, that struck fear in Sarah's heart more than any story or old report ever had. Cross walked around the table and brought back the helmet. Elder Lyons traced its contours with his wrinkled fingers, then placed it in his lap.

"So they continue to exist?" Arthur growled affronted, leaning on the table. Where her father was almost placid, he was intensity personified as he drilled a look in the Midwesterners. "Are you sure you didn't deal with locals who found an armory, an abandoned weapon deposit?"

"I don't know of any local faction in Illinois that uses Vertibirds, tanks, Power Armour like this and Gauss rifles, Sentinel," Teagan answered sarcastically. "Nor any who live in a bunker that makes this -" he waved a hand to encompass the war room. "look like the two centuries old antiques it is."

"There's more," Proctor Quinlan added. "We received information over time about the Enclave's actions on the West Coast, up to the fall of Navarro. The designs match, but there are obvious signs of improvement all over the line, from power efficiency to the alloy structure. A whole new model we've tentatively dubbed X-01. Who else would have the means for such advanced development? Because we don't."

"How did you find them?" Sarah spoke for the first time, ungluing her eyes from the helmet.

"They found us." Everyone on her side started at the raspy voice. Captain Kells looked rather unrepentant at the glare Arthur whipped at him. "Almost a year ago, we started clashing. Skirmishes, both in the air and on the ground. Later, they went on a full offensive. It was a tough fight."

"I'll be honest, Brothers," Teagan said. "Their hardware outmatches ours, by at least an order of magnitude. The armor takes more punishment, their Vertibirds run circles around our airships. Where we field plasma and lasers, they throw railguns and experimental DEWs at us."

Sarah leaned on the edge of her seat. "Yet you beat them?"

"Not at a small cost, but yes." There was evident pride in Teagan's voice, but Sarah didn't miss the hardening of his features. "We had the numbers, the experience and we knew the territory. We later discovered their officers relied mostly on simulator pods we found in the bunker, but possessed little to nothing in field savvy." Teagan looked at her and Sarah got the feeling for the bomb before it dropped. "But more importantly, they didn't receive any support by the other divisions."

Arthur stood straighter, glancing at Sarah. "What makes you say that?"

Proctor Quinlan produced a number of holotapes from the same box and pushed them across the table with a flick of his wrist.

"Their commander, one Major Ford, scrambled the mainframe when we breached the bunker, but we have... extensive experience with data recovery. Among other things on those tapes, there's part of his personal correspondence with other bases. There are mentions of Gabriel AFB in New York, Naval Station Norfolk, Fort Dix in New Jersey, and likely more we haven't deciphered yet. It seems the group in Illinois opposed their new President's orders. A splinter faction, of sorts."

"A new President," Rothchild echoed the word with the same dread Sarah felt eating away at her composure. Richardson's name was still spat as a curse almost forty years later. "The last one almost wiped away all life on the planet."

"Only thing we know about this John Henry Eden is that he's preparing for something," Teagan bulldozed on, words falling like boulders. "Something big enough to issue a general recall order for personnel to a facility here on the East Coast codenamed _Raven Rock_. From what we gathered, we think it's either in Maryland or Pennsylvania."

"So, the hammer will fall here the hardest." Her father's voice was pensive, yet sharp enough to monopolize the room's attention without rising above a whisper. His hands brushed absently on the helmet. "And it couldn't be at a worse time. The super mutants' hold on Northern D.C. is strengthening, their numbers grow every day. And recent reports indicate local… outfits are becoming more aggressive."

"The Jefferson Memorial." Last time she took a turn on the walls, Sarah could see the Talon mercenaries bustling in and out of the old monument, hauling equipment in and dead mutants out, while more dug trenches and fortified the perimeter. They didn't dare cross the bridge or turn a mortar in the Citadel's direction, but everyone could see they were there to stay. "One problem out of dozens."

Captain Kells exchanged a meaningful glance with Teagan, who nodded and cleared his throat.

"With all due respect, Elder, Brothers, I think you're observing this from an outdated perspective. The same that has doomed the Western Chapters. Allow me to explain," he added quickly, raising a hand to stall Arthur's rebuttal. Sarah felt her curiosity piqued, despite the disrespectful wording of the Head Paladin.

"The Enclave is the most dangerous enemy the Brotherhood has ever faced and that was forty years ago. This reiteration is even more advanced. Knowing of the threat ahead, I consider a waste to regard these local outfits, as you call them, as enemies. I'd rather think of them assets, to support the war effort."

"You don't know who you speak of, Paladin," Arthur said heatedly. "These are honourless mercenaries. They deal in slaves; chems and caps are the only values they hold faith to."

Teagan shrugged. "Pretty standard Wasteland fare, then." His eyes narrowed. "Tell me, Sentinel, how many Paladins can this Chapter field? How many Knights, lacking the proper training? How many suits of power armor remain unused in your deposits?"

"You would sacrifice our founders' principles for the sake of expediency?"

Sarah interjected, catching Teagan's attention before Arthur could fulminate him with a look. "Brothers, we do draw heavily from the locals for our new recruits." She kept her opinion on their average skill to herself. "But to extend the privilege to people like the Talons, that's different. They are no better than raiders, only more organized. More dangerous."

"Then reform them!" Teagan snarled. Sarah blinked, caught flatfooted at the vehemence. Teagan stood and started to pace. "Kill the leaders and show the rest an alternative! We're talking about people already used to arms and combat, in your case even accustomed to discipline already. _We_ had to make do with dozens of gangs and tribes that would sooner slit each other's throat than fight a common enemy, yet Chicago is now the safest city in the whole Midwest!"

"What my Brother is trying to say," Proctor Quinlan interjected soothingly, earning murderous glares from Teagan and Arthur both. "Is that the Codex imposes limitations that are anachronistic at best, to put it mildly. Breaking from them doesn't mean abandoning what the Brotherhood stands for. Just," he licked his lips, searching for the right word. "hone an imperfect formula."

"The first Elder Williams was a mercenary. A gun for hire." Captain Kells appeared completely unperturbed, but it was hard to tell with his skin burned off. Respect dripped thick from his words like oil, however. "Uneducated and unworthy of the Brotherhood by the Western standards, yet he ended up leading the Chapter against super mutant warlords and a robot army. Without him, there wouldn't be a Midwestern Brotherhood to speak of; the survivors would be no better than raiders. Heavens, I'd probably be long dead and rotten, my family with me. And the list goes on."

Sarah leaned back in her chair, conflicted. Part of her insisted the Midwesterners didn't know what they were talking about, that they'd been lucky or there was just much and more they were omitting to strengthen their argument. Yet she recognized that voice as the one she repressed time and again in the training field, for it obfuscated her objectivity on the new recruits, Wastelander more often than not, no matter if some of them weren't _that_ abysmal.

It was the same voice she recalled speaking with when she was four and she observed from high above her father's Paladins corral hundreds of people in the Pitt's main plaza. It was the voice she spoke with to answer his questions about book tactics and the Codex as hundreds, maybe thousands were mowed down by laser fire and plasma.

"It's true we have broken from the Codex once already." Her father was speaking, his voice a tired balm. "And our war here has been long and hard fought, with few precious victories. But this is a discussion for another day when we've all had time to think things through and assess the threat together, on both ends."

A brooding silence fell over the war room. The lull didn't last long, however, yet long enough Sarah noticed the silent challenge gaining momentum between Arthur and Paladin Teagan, on who would wilt and comply to her father's veiled order first. She mentally rolled her eyes. _'Men.'_

"Despite this -" Arthur finally broke the impasse and gestured at the Enclave's helmet. " - the super mutants remain the most pressing threat at the moment. They must be annihilated if we want to focus all of our energy on the Enclave. And mark my word for it: these are not the Master's creations you may have dealt with in the Midwest. They are abominations, driven only by their hunger for flesh. They will not be reasoned with."

Teagan looked at both his companions, receiving nods and shrugs. "Very well then. Elder Williams sent us here as his observers, to support you and set the terms for an alliance of mutual benefit. We wish to be clear on one point, however."

He moved around the table until he stood in front of Arthur. They were almost of a height, the Midwestern in the power armor and the last Maxson in his coat. Arthur sure had grown up in the last few years, Sarah mused, then pushed those stray thought away before they led to a ground already trod one and best left alone. For good.

"Our Chapter broke away from the Western bigotry when we stepped on those airships decades ago. You have our respect as a Maxson, but not our unconditioned obedience out of some divine authority. What your grandfather did, the madness that pushed him to prod the Bear, we'll have nothing of it. If we are to be allies, it will be on equal standing, Chapter beside Chapter."

The Paladin reached out with one hand. A moment later, without looking at her father, Arthur shook it.

Sarah regarded her father from the corner of her eyes, a small frown etched between her eyebrows. He was smiling, but it was a distant thing. In the last half hour, it seemed another ten years had been piled on his shoulders, if that was possible at all.

 _'He will need me.'_ Annoyance still smoldered inside her, but she'd sooner die than fail him, ever. She foresaw a lot of action in the Pride's future. The thought brought a sour grimace to her face.

It was time to meet with Paladin Gunny and expand the Pride's roster.

From his seat, Rothchild cleared his throat. There was an odd glint twinkling in his eye as he looked at his Midwestern counterpart.

"You mentioned improved power efficiency in the new Enclave armor models?"

Sarah could help but mirror Arthur's smile when the dots connected in her mind. The Midwesterners confusion only made it wider

0 * TTL * 0

Hogarth told them what he knew of the Talon's invasion of the Vault, of how he killed and how he fled. Guilt colored his tale as much as anger, frustration, and fear did. He never mentioned his father nor his words, playing the scene over and over in his head until he didn't know what had happened from what he thought might have.

They told him of the substance behind the name of Paradise Falls, of the trade of flesh for metal that fed the perennial state of war between the buds of civilization in D.C. and the dozens of raider gangs roaming the ruins.

Slaves went into the Pitt, the radioactive ruins of the once Pittsburgh. Bullets, weapons, and armor came out of the train tunnels. Paradise Fall was the waystation, the market square, the greatest trading hub north of the Potomac and south of HellTown.

And of this Gomorrah, this new Babylon on Earth, Eulogy Jones was the undisputed king.

Hogarth wiped the puke from his mouth and spat the rest into the toilet. It was barely more than a closet, a broom closet with a toilet, a shower stick and nothing more. Like the rest of the Sheriff's house - where he'd been transferred to only recently from outside this Megaton town, he was told - it remained suspended in a state of inherent, almost subtle squalor. It reminded Hogarth of the Old Levels, where humidity and time ate so deeply into the walls and everything else no amount of effort, no matter how titanic, could restore its condition.

Simms and Billy Creel gave him a little privacy: the bathroom door was closed between them, but he could hear them talking just outside. Or rather, Billy attempted to whisper, only to be rebuked by his superior at every turn.

They told him they belonged to an organization going by the name of Regulators. Bounty hunters and Vigilantes, protectors and executioners, cleaning the 'Wasteland' one gang of scum at a time, like the one who'd entered the Vault from the tunnel in the Old Levels and almost did him in.

 _'_ _ **How helpless are you?'**_ The treacherous voice in his head asked, already knowing the answer.

Hogarth punched the wall, relishing the pain shooting up his arm and the weak metal buckling. It gave pause to thoughts running a mile a minute, skirting along the edges of panic when he as much as approached what lay beyond the door, beyond the house's main door or even a window.

The worst part was he felt well. Unrealistically well, at least in body. He should be starved, weak, maybe even delirious. He should be covered in crippling wounds, yet his hand flexed just fine and his body overflowed with pent-up energy begging to be spent. What's more, there was strength in his muscles, a vigor that was unfamiliar as it was exhilarating… and completely, utterly, _fucking useless._

He took a deep breath, tasting the tang of rust, bile and lingering traces of disinfectant. None of Gomez's calming mantras came to him them, refusing to be summoned from whenever he'd shoved them.

 _'Easy. One thing at a time.'_ His hands were shaking, whether from anger or fear he didn't know. Just that the trembling wouldn't stop, no matter how tight he curled them into fists or gritted his teeth.

 _'I'm no use to anyone like this. Focus, stupid. I've already lost a week. I need to -'_

 _ **'Hide like a rat and hope they don't find you. You'll only make things worse.'**_

 _'Fuck that. Amata is pregnant. I messed up once already. Not again. I'll never forsake her.'_

"How are you feeling, son?" Simms asked him when he finally cracked the door open and stepped out, hands balled tightly into his pant pockets.

"What are you going to do?"

Simms had the look of a man who was about to give an answer he'd repeated too many times already and never liked once.

"My group of Regulators is here to protect Megaton. It has one of the few working water plants on this or that side of the Potomac. Hundreds of people depend on it every day."

"What about the Talons, then? What about the _hundreds_ of people they enslaved?" Hogarth strode up to the Regulators, keeping his focus pointedly away from the main door or any windows. There was no ignoring the heat creeping in from outside and flowing into his lungs with every breath.

 _'Later. Focus. Focus, damn it.'_

"Paradise Falls is a fortress of hundreds. I have only a dozen people with me," Simms explained. He had the decency to look contrite and bitter at his own words, yet not apologetic. There was history there, but at the moment Hogarth couldn't care less about it. "They are needed here. With the Talons squatting in your Vault, I'll need every gun to make sure they don't try anything. Megaton is too important. It's our home."

"And fuck everyone else as long as that's peachy, right?"

"Don't spin your morality on me, boy." It was Simms' turn to close the gap between them, every syllable a lash to Hogarth's face. He took it and refused to budge. "You're twenty years too young in this world to judge. Megaton is hope." Steel entered his voice and the whole room seemed to tremble as his tone rose. "It's not perfect, but we're building _something_ here. The comforts you took for granted your whole life, steady meals or fresh water, are more than a luxury out here: people fight and kill without remorse or regret if it means to survive another day."

Billy Creel narrowed his good eye at Hogarth. "We've already risked a lot by taking you in town, kid. Talon doesn't know mercy and that Burke, he's the most fucked up out of all of 'em: he'd be more than happy to throw people at us if he knew you were here."

"So this is it?" Hogarth glared at both men in turn, then set his sight on the door and the thin rays of light creeping through the gaps between the edge and the wall. "First you tell me you keep the Wasteland safe by killing shitheads like the Talons, then you go back on your own word?"

 _'_ _ **And what if they do? What are you going to do? Alone, without a weapon or any way to find the way in this Wasteland?'**_

 _'_ _Something. Anything. I can't abandon them. I won't forsake her.'_

 _ **'Because that worked out to well last time, didn't it?'**_

"I never said that, son," Simms said, blindsiding him. "I've already sent one of my people to our headquarters, requesting action by our leader, Sonora Cruz. No storming Paradise Falls," he added immediately as Hogarth's mouth opened, " but we're not leaving them free reign if we can help it. Now stop shouting and sit down, we need to talk about what to do with you."

He pointed at a finicky round table of old wood in the corner near the kitchen when a metal click and the screech of rusted hinges stopped Hogarth cold. Or rather warm, when the cone of light washed over him from the open door.

He turned away as if scalded, black spots dancing in his vision as he blinked like crazy, tears bubbling in his eyes, yet he didn't move. Heat stronger than almost any he'd ever experienced - Andy's flamethrower acting up didn't count - poured into every pore of his body almost like a physical force, itching and soothing at the same time.

The blinding light carried voices with it, overlapping with dozens of tones, cramming through the door to reach him. It was like the cafeteria at its fullest, only ten times more so in accent and pitch, volume and inflection.

Then the door clicked shut and Hogarth felt distinct like he'd just been robbed.

"Dad, I'm back!" A child's voice, yet again different, excited but careful. "Everything's A-ok at the - he's up? He busted your nose Dad?"

Hogarth squinted at his hands, the blur receding with the tears. He saw the kid, short and with his dad's face; a miniature duster and a BB-gun giving him the airs of a peanut Regulator only missing the folded hat of his father. He had the suspicious look down better than half the Vault already too. Talented kid.

"It's alright. Go upstairs, Harden. Billy and I will have a few words with Hogarth now."

"But Daad -"

"Harden."

"Yessir!"

The boy disappeared upstairs, but not before he pierced Hogarth with a poisonous glare or two. He couldn't help but be amused over the usual annoyance. Oddly, the familiar treatment eased some of the tension from his shoulders, even if he still tasted bile.

"You alright, son? First time in the sun is always messy for you Vaulties, I take it."

"Been worse," Hogarth grumbled as he took his seat, then waited, despite his instincts screaming at him otherwise. "A bit hungry, though."

"Aren't we all?" Billy mused loudly. Simms sighed.

"Alright, son. I'll make this short and clear for you. Megaton is not the best place for you Vault Dwellers at the moment."

Hogarth's brow furrowed. "Is it me, or you're speaking in broad lines?"

"Both, but mostly the latter. A few years ago, five or so, one of you blues crawled out of the main door. A young woman, Judith Lebovitz. You knew her?"

"Judith… No, it can't be." Hogarth shook his head, the vague contours of a face solidifying in his mind eye. "She died a while ago during a radroach breakout. I saw her file in the Clinic." He remembered her too now: she was one of the eggheads at the Bioreactor level, or would have been one soon. He couldn't remember whether she died before or after her GOAT. Amata would know.

Simms shrugged. "Might have used her name then. Anyway, she popped out of the Vault and got here in one piece. Befriended Moira, the local crazyhead. You'll meet her soon. Together, they thought they'd do something about the bomb."

Hogarth leaned back, eyes wide. "Wait, what _bomb_?!"

Billy Creel jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, an amused smile stretching across his face. "The Great War toy at the bottom of the crater outside, smack in the center of town. From what we know it's dormant but not inactive. Or some shit like that."

"You- you built a town around a fucking _nuclear_ _bomb?_ "

Simms lifted a pacifying palm. "Easy. We get that a lot, but there isn't much choice for lodging around these parts and you get used to it quickly. Nothing defensible, at least. Anyway," he continued, visibly steering the conversation back on track and ignoring Hogarth's tangible disbelief. "Judith and Moira got in their head to disarm it for good. They didn't account for the Church of the Atom, though."

Hogarth opened his mouth in muted astonishment, sending an almost pleading look to both men. ' _Just… What the hell?'_

Creel nodded along, a grimace painted on his face. "Group of nutjobs who praise the Power of Atom and radiation and the Sun. It's quite convoluted and trust me, you _don't_ want them to explain it to you."

"There are quite a few of them all over the Wasteland, though they made Megaton some sort of central hub." Simms shrugged again, more tiredly this time. "And we can't complain. They help build the walls, till the land and another dozen useful things to keep the town running. Worth the daily preaching of Confessor Cromwell, most of the time."

Hogarth opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. Opened it again, letting out a wordless sound as he tried to put his thoughts in order. _'Maybe it's just a very lucid dream? James had those.'_

"So," he started carefully. "What happened?"

"They tried to pry open the casing. The Confessor shouted them back to their homes." Simms closed his eyes, then fixed Hogarth with a pointed look. "Two days later, Judith was gone. Left town in the middle of the night, all her stuff in her bunk, and vanished. Nobody ever saw her again. Moira's been living half a recluse ever since."

Hogarth blinked. "What is this, some kind of ghost story?"

Billy groaned. Simms fixed Hogarth with a hard look. "It's a _warning_. You can't leave this house screaming 'Vault Dweller', or you'll probably end up like Judith. Cromwell holds one hell of a grudge, but we haven't got a scrap of proof. Not much the Regulators can do there. And you can't go after Eulogy Jones or Burke as you are."

"And what am I?" Hogarth hissed, leaning forward almost in challenge.

Simms arched an unimpressed eyebrow as Billy coughed to cover a chortle. "Naïve," he stated. "Inexperienced. Blinded by emotion. You'd be dead before you reach Big Town if you don't get turned around before that."

 **'** _ **He's right. You'd better give it up. What did they ever do for you?'**_

 _'She did everything.'_

 _ **'And nothing. The last two years included.'**_

 _'That was on me.'_

Hogarth buried his face in his hands, rubbing it until it stung and the deprecating voice in his head was silenced. Then he met Simms' eyes.

"What's your offer then?"

The Sheriff leaned back in his chair and began rummaging in the pockets of his duster. At the corner of his eyes, Hogarth watched Billy Creel go through several emotional states at once, each too quick to put a name on it.

"You sure it's a good idea, sir?'

The Sheriff hummed, then produced a roughly cut five-pointed star of tin mounted on a clip. Smack in the middle of it, a bold, large R had been cut.

"Join the Regulators as an apprentice, Hogarth. You survived Talon's attack and killed a few of them. You've got guts and either some skill or a lot of luck. Either case, experience and training will tell. And you will have a go at saving your people when Sonora moves. Because she _will_ make a move soon, I can promise you that."

Hogarth stared at the star waiting on the table, halfway between him and the Sheriff. He kept his own hands clasped before him. He wanted to grab the star. He wanted to throw it in the Regulator's face with the attached offer and storm out of the door. More than anything, he wanted to scream.

"And how will that solve my being from a Vault?"

Simms shrugged, but his gaze was intense, searching Hogarth's very soul for deception and ill-intentions. "We'll give you back your wrist-watch, the Pip-Boy, but you better not wear it in public so far. Other than that?" He pointed an admonishing finger at Hogarth, like a bearded Mr. Brotch on steroids and a cowboy night. "Keep your mouth shut, learn quickly and nobody will have reason to suspect you aren't just another recruit. This star will protect you, help you: in turn, you'll hold up what it stands for. What do you say, you're gonna to join the Good Fight?"

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: A big thank you to_ _ **The Desert Dancer**_ _,_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel, Baslias, Little Caesar's**_ _and_ _ **Pro Assassin**_ _for their reviews._

 _My thanks to everyone who's reading this story as well. Consider supporting this with a following if you want to know when the next chapter will come out. Also, any form of feedback, from clarification requests to critiques, is more than welcome. *Gulps down Grape Mentats and Rolls Speech* What do you say, gonna leave a_ _ **review**_ _? *Wink wink*._


	10. Atom III: Time to Nut Up or Shut Up

_AN: My thanks to_ _ **Krieg118, The Desert Dancer, Pro Assassin, Aegon Blacksteel, Baslias, Alternative NonFiction, Paladin Delta, Paladin Bailey, Perseph**_ _and_ _ **WastelandScribe**_ _for their reviews, criticisms, and support. Twenty-one reviews since the last chapter is a LOT, but keep it up. A shout out to everyone who also favorited and put this story on alert: there's oddly only a small number of you, considering how many people read and review this story._

 **Atom III: Time to Nut Up or Shut Up.**

The days following the _Albatross'_ arrival saw the tensions between the members of the D.C. Chapter and the Midwesterners ramp up despite any attempts to nip hostilities in the bud made by Sarah and the rest of the brass. Glade nailed the issue after Kodiak and he had to separate Knights Varham and Bael from a number of Midwesterners, who had taken offense at their shit-talking of the Ghoul Flyboys in charge of operating the _Albatross_.

" _We've shot mutants and Frankensteins on sight since before I was born. You don't wave away that kind of animosity in a week."_

It wasn't the first such incident, nor the last. The preparations for the joint offensive on the Mall and the scouting of the northern and western reaches ground down to a crawl the next day after Paladin Hoss and a Midwesterner Paladin sent each other to the infirmary with broken bones and damaged suits of power armor.

From there, the situation only escalated further. Many of the Midwesterners took to sleeping on the _Albatross_ despite the offered lodgings in the B Ring. Briefings over scouting reports and the ranging's targets were bogged down by lengthy and grinding discussions with the Midwesterners' leaders to try and put a lid on the escalating tensions.

It was during one of those, just after Arthur and Teagan's joined speech to the gathered Brotherhood to encourage cooperation, that Elder Lyons tabled the idea of a slugging fest. At the time, Sarah nearly choked on her spit.

Two days into it, however, she couldn't deny that her father was onto something. As always.

Stripped out of their recon suits, duos of mixed contenders slugged it out in the sparring ring Paladin Gunny had erected all those years ago to torment his recruits. Betting was condoned and attendance mandatory on both sides outside official duties, which at some point or another meant anyone but the perimeter patrols and the skeleton crew of machinists who Sarah had yet to see leave the _Albatross_ at any time.

"Look at it," Kodiak said, rubbing his aching jaw. He stood by her side at some distance from the ring, but being a head taller than nearly everyone else meant he could see the action unimpeded. "They're really getting into it." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "What do you think, Sarah. Found our new Rookie?"

Glade passed a hand through his short cropped hair. "He moves better than that Reddin girl, that's for sure."

The Star Paladin hummed noncommittally. "He's got good marks at the firing range as well. A cool head." Kodiak grinned at that.

"Dusk will love him."

Glade made a show of rolling his eyes.

A loud thwack and Initiate Danse reeled into the ropes. He stiffened his guard moments before Paladin Commander Teagan was on him. A short few combinations later, Danse's back was scratched and raw from his shifting and dodging against the ropes, but Sarah nodded to herself in approval at the Initiate's technique: rough around the edges as it was, he was holding back the stronger and more experienced Paladin. He wouldn't last long, though.

Danse tried to step around, only to be thrown back into the ropes with a snarl by Teagan. Sarah pushed closer to the ring and was rewarded with a clear view to Captain Kells' low kick to the Paladin's knee. Knight Artemis, who had been fighting the ghoul on the other side of the ring, leaned woozily on a corner pole, already being checked over by Vargas.

Teagan stumbled and Danse capitalized: his jab was deflected, but his haymaker connected, cleaning Teagan's clock. Sarah winced in sympathy. Yet the Commander didn't go down and Danse's rush was rewarded with an uppercut to the chin that sent the Initiate reeling back on unsteady feet, then down on his bum.

She grimaced. If the Commander hadn't been on his last leg already, that punch would have been bye-bye for Danse.

A cheer went up from the gathered Brothers and Sisters as Kells' swept Teagan's legs from under him and forced him to tap out with an armbar. Kodiak joined in eagerly on the applause.

Then silence fell as a hundred pair of eyes stared at Kells' outstretched hand to a bleary-eyed Danse.

Sarah's breath caught. _'Take it. Come on, take it.'_

Danse shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs and grunted. Then their palms smacked and the Initiate allowed the Ghoul Captain to haul him up on his feet.

"You fought well, smoothskin," the Captain offered flatly in the silence of the courtyard. His lipless smile was thin and disquieting even from a distance, but Sarah let none of that show. She thanked God neither did Danse. "The Commander is our resident version of your Paladin Gunny. Expect a few nuka colas thrown your way tonight."

A few of the Midwesterners laughed. The Initiate took the compliment, exaggerated as it was, with good, stonily grace.

"Kind of nice of the Captain," Kodiak muttered. "He took down both of them, after all."

' _A little sacrifice for the cause,'_ Sarah thought as the Captain met her eyes and offered her a nod. _'He wants this to work as well.'_

"The Initiate held off a stronger opponent long enough for Kells to deal with Artemis," Glade argued from her other side. "A sword cannot strike as well without a good shield." Kodiak nodded, then glanced at Sarah expectantly.

"Tell him to report to the Den in three hours," she told him, then popped a stiff joint in her neck, grimacing. Maybe Dusk could give her a massage before Colvin served the traditional dinner of mirelurk omelets and Punga fruits the Pride had before every deployment. It'd be good before the hours of paperwork waiting for her at her desk, among which a review of the Initiate's marks and Gunny's notes on him. "See you –"

"Next up!" Paladin Gunny roared in his best sergeant-instructor voice, picking out four slips of paper from the two fighters' bowl in front of him, one for the Midwesterners and one for her Chapter. "Sentinel Maxson and Knight Larsen versus Paladin Brandis and Star Paladin Lyons."

Hooting and cheers exploded. Sarah sighed and resisted the urge to rub the bridge of her nose, then put up her best façade for the rest of the Brotherhood. Glade and Kodiak were distinctly blank-faced. Sarah promised them anguish and the endless agony of latrine duty in a single glare. They were of the Pride, however, the best the Brotherhood had to offer, so they didn't flinch.

She handed Glade the top-half of her BDUs and boots, then slipped through the ropes clad only in her pants and tank top. Arthur was already there with the Midwestern Knight, both of them bare-chested. There was no question as to whom a good portion of the female residents of the Citadel was ogling, though. Nor to where Arthur's eyes flickered as he lowered himself into his guard, before glancing up at her face again in evident concentration.

Sarah cracked her knuckles, her annoyance evaporating in the face of building anticipation. She shook hands with Paladin Brandis. The Midwesterner was already well into his forties, but his grip was steel.

"Pardon the bluntness, ma'am, but I've always wanted to punch Old Jeremy Maxson in the face." Brandis chuckled. "His grandkid will have to do."

0 * TTL * 0

"Aaand – Done!" Moira straightened with a whoop, cradling half a dozen vials of blood and a used-up push button set. "Now press down on it. Or don't." Her face scrunched up in confusion, lower lip pouting. "Nevermind, just stay put for a little bit or the blood loss will make you woozy. I don't think you can reintegrate red blood cells that fast."

Hog sighed and leaned back into the padded chair, closing his eyes. The needle puncture in the crook of his elbow had already vanished, same as the hole in his iliac crest bone: both only left behind a prickling sensation, fast fading if annoying, and indeed an underlying weariness. He took a steadying breath as he contemplated the delirious weirdness of it all and listened to the humming of the woman who, by all accounts, had played him the meanest biological left ball in the history of nutjobs.

"How long will it take?" He asked, cracking an eye open.

"Oh, only a little while," Moira replied cheerfully from her workstation. She slotted one of the vials in a centrifuge, then peered into a petri dish through a microscope… and that was the extension of what he could identify. The rest of the machines cluttered in the stark backroom of Craterside Supplies looked almost esoteric. "I'll run a few tests to see how your immune system's handling the injection and everything else, then I'll try to cultivate a few cells, measure how radiation affects cellular differentiation and replication. Oh, and the rate of metabolization: I think the more you've got running in your body, the better you'll heal, but your DNA lacks the baseline mutations found in your typical wastelander and that –"

"Run it by me as if I were a four years old. Please." He might have been the Vault physician's son, true, but she'd lost him at cellular differentiation nonetheless. He pushed that thought away before it could blossom.

"Oh, sorry." The woman looked almost guilty as she started the centrifuge and turned to him. He didn't like the appraising gleam in her eye. It reminded him of Beatrice, back in the Vault, and of a lot of screws not bolted right. "Your growing up in the Vault means your DNA wasn't affected by the ambient radiation of this UpTopWorld as much as anyone else's. On any other day, you'd be healthier and probably longer-lived than your average Joe, deadly mutated beasts notwithstanding. Now, with Virgil's Serum in you?" She giggled, her eyes _gleaming_ in excitement. It sent a shudder down his spine. "I can only guess until the tests are over or you get a little beaten up again."

She regarded in with a considering look. "You wouldn't do it, would you? Just a dip in irradiated water, then a few broken bones for science?"

Hog blinked, then hauled himself off the examination seat as if it burned him. "No. Uh. No, I don't think so. Not now." _'Not ever.'_

Moira pouted, then the door cracked open. A man in his late thirties walked in, broad shouldered and tanned under a heavy set of leather and ceramic armor plates. He regarded Hog with a hard stare the Vault Dweller – now former – had learned in the past week was his average expression: it didn't stop Hog from matching it until the man turned to Moira, less intimidated and more indifferent to the whole rocket science that was apparently keeping Hogarth alive.

"We have customers, dear," Andrej said in a heavy Slavic accent that reminded Hog of old school holovids during Educational Movie Night. "Wolfgang and his crew."

Moira clapped her hands in excitement and slipped off her stained white coat, revealing the RobCo gearhead jumpsuit underneath in all its greasy glory. It made Hogarth wistful for a long moment.

"Oh, wonderful!" She walked up to the taller Russian and pecked him on his hairy cheek. "Thank you, luv. Where's Brian?"

"Playing with Maggie and Billie on platform outside." He patted her shoulder. "Children of Atom are busy today. Nobody shouted at our door yet."

Moira nodded absently, then walked out humming and Hogarth heard voices greeting her rambunctiously from the other side. Andrej stopped on the doorsill instead, grimacing.

"Cover your arm and face. Better not give Children reason to snoop, okay?"

Hog nodded and rolled down the sleeve of his stained cotton shirt, heavy with almost a week of perspiration and assorted grime. On top of it went his baggy parka, then he wrapped the shemagh scarf around his lower face and donned the threadbare booney hat and fingerless gloves. The belt holding his Desert Eagle Mark I and a spare 357 mag had never left his waist. He touched the grip briefly, the by-now familiar weight offering some form of comfort and control.

Nobody would take him without a fight.

Even inside, out of the sunlight, putting on the parka had him stifle a groan. The first – and only – time he'd pointed out he'd cook alive with all those layers on, Sheriff Simms had replied it was either that or being driven into agony by sunburns _wrecking your underground skin_ during the day and freezing as soon as the sun went down. That, and his paleness would have him stick out like a sore thumb. Going around in the Wasteland's equivalent of a burka was only marginally better.

One week in, he still hadn't got used to the sweat and the _stink_ radiating off him. It was worse than anything he'd ever experienced during his years as a pariah, short of radroaches' waste, yet nobody seemed to really mind. Maybe because nobody really smelled any different, only worse in several instances. It didn't mean he wasn't looking forward to the weekly shower allotted to all Megaton citizens – and him now, he supposed.

Hogarth walked out of Craterside Supplies and held up a hand to shield his eyes from the harsh glare. After his first few steps out of Simms' house and the first obligatory near-blindness experience, the sun had ceased to be an awe-inspiring novelty and become a nuisance in short order. Especially after the one time he'd tempted fate and stared at it too long. He could already feel the sweat clamming and drying under the scarf and on his brow.

 _ **'Ingrate** **, complaining about a little heat. Think of what Amata and the others must be going through.'**_

"Oggie!"

Short, scrawny arms wrapped around Hog's leg, snatching him away from that particular line of thought for the time being. A sharp intake of air had his nostrils itch with dirt particles, the tang of rust and the sweetness of cooking meat. A kid's sparkling brown eyes looked at him expectantly, in a way none of the Vault kids ever did. Not that he would have noticed even if they had. Nobody ever hugged Sooty.

Hog grunted and picked up Brian Brown by the armpits, smiling wryly behind his scarf. "Hey, lil'one. Having fun?"

The four years old kicked the air but nodded fervently, then reached out to grab at Hog's cheeks under the cloth. The toy rocket in his hand brushed against Hog's face as he leaned back. Maggie Creel, Billy's adopted daughter, stood off by the railing, palming a baseball glove and ball, eyeing him warily. He just ignored her.

"Oggie! Why you keep your face masked?"

"Because I'm ugly. Really, really bad looking," he rephrased at the child's frown. He pouted in a way that reminded Hog of his mother, minus the inherent creep factor. "You'd be scared to death and tears."

"But I want to see Oggie's face!" Brian whined, undaunted.

"No kiddo, you don't," Billy chuckled as he plucked the squirming boy from Hog's stiff hands. "Jeez, Hog, you're holding the kid like he's a hot tato."

He was thankful for the scarf hiding his wince at the nickname. Mostly because he didn't hear it spoken by Billy's voice. "Why, he isn't?"

The Regulator shook his head and put the boy down on the platform, nudging him towards Maggie. He cast a watchful look around, his hand never far from the Smith & Wesson revolver at his hip.

"Sheriff wanted to see you at the barracks."

Hog froze in surprise. For a moment, all he heard was his heartbeat picking up and battering against his skull. Then he remembered how to breathe.

"He got word from Sonora Cruz? Are we moving? To Paradise Falls?"

"Shush!" Billy hissed, glancing about quickly. "I don't know. A group was prepping to move out, but – Hey!"

Hog started running for the Regulators' barracks. Billy grabbed him before he'd made a couple of steps.

"The hell you doing? You want to cause a scene or what?"

Hog glared, then yanked his arm free and walked down the ramp, heading to the main gate and the barracks there as fast as his legs would carry him. Part of him realized Billy was probably right, but still…

' _Focus. Don't lose it now. This is it. I'm coming for you, A.'_

0 * TTL * 0

The glowing green letters on the black of her terminal's screen were heralding a familiar headache. Sarah rubbed her eyes and kept perusing the latest batch of reports from Logistics, detailing the progress – _finally!_ – on setting up the thrice-damned expedition against the Super Mutants in D.C. and beyond.

She leaned back in her seat and picked up her plate of cold mirelurk omelet from the desk, spearing a slice as she kept reading. Rothchild and his penchant for purple prose had gotten worse as the years went by, but thankfully the Head Scribe and Proctor Quinlan had hit it off like a house on fire. That had left the typing down to someone else. Better yet, it appeared the gearheads were finally making some headways in that lump of metal and broken promises stored in the underground bay. Or at least, that's what Kodiak referred after some quality time with his scribe friend from Shield, a redhead by the name of Agincourt.

Sarah smiled wistfully, then caught the direction her thoughts were heading and straightened, focusing back on the task at hand: check the evening stack, then catch some shut eye. The motion elicited a stifled groan as her side throbbed under the bandages, courtesy of Arthur's ministrations in the ring earlier that day.

Not that she hadn't given as much as she received, if not more.

She lifted her eyes to the door as she caught the echo of steps approaching from the other side. Her office was just a corridor down from the Den, smack in the middle of the A Ring, but the lights had been snuffed out for a couple of hours already. She checked the grandfather clock on the wall. It was too soon by three hours and a half for Dusk to return from her watch.

Her suspicion was confirmed moments later by a sharp rapping on the door and a deep voice poorly suited for whispering around.

"Sarah. It's me."

She sighed, then picked up the blue-and-grey jacket of her dress uniform from the back of her chair and shrugged it on, buttoning up only enough to cover her chest. She tucked most of her hair back up in a regulation bun next, then checked herself in the small, cracked mirror on her desk, next to the picture with her father. Satisfied she looked more professional than she allowed herself to be during the late nights of bureaucracy, she bid him come in.

Arthur strode in like he owned the place, his stance perfected by years of leadership training until it was a built-in response, as natural as breathing. He'd opted for his own dress uniform underneath the battle-coat, but if he was in any discomfort after the afternoon sparring, he let none of that show.

The awkwardness that followed him in was enough to compensate.

She saluted. He waved, the flick of his wrist jerky, almost aggressive.

"Let's do away with that. It's just the two of us here, right?"

Sarah's eyebrow twitched, but she sat back down and pointed out a spare chair to him. It creaked ominously under his weight, but his face didn't as much as twitch. It told Sarah everything she needed more on his state more than a dozen grimaces. The voice chastising her for her pettiness remained only a distant echo.

"I'm not expecting any visits if that's what you're asking."

He nodded, then fixed her with sharp blue eyes. She held his gaze for a moment, then she found the silver eagle badge of his rank of Sentinel pinned above his breast. Seconds trickled by in silence. Sarah glanced at her terminal.

"It's late, Arthur, and I still have half a dozen reports to go through. What do you want?"

"Do you really hold _this_ against me so much?"

He unclasped the Sentinel badge and smacked it on her desk with enough force to make the cracked mirror rattle. She met his glare, unimpressed.

"Sarah," he growled.

"Yes," she said, "Yes, I do." She looked down at the badge but didn't take it. His unspoken offer was as clear as it was offending. It was charity, a rash choice made out of pity, frustration, and affection. Every fiber of her being rejected it. "I bled, suffered and worked my ass off for _years_ to deserve that recognition. To get out of the Elder's shadow." _'And yours.'_ "I showed time and time again I'm the best this Chapter has to offer, but the moment it's _convenient_ , I'm pushed to the side, by my own father, in favor of a political promotion. Don't you dare deny it," she hissed at him when he made to answer. "Just don't. And pick that up, it's yours now."

The chair creaked again as Arthur shifted and pinned the badge back to his coat. Then it almost buckled as he rose to his feet and started pacing. She mirrored him.

"You're being selfish and unreasonable." Her nostrils flared, but he continued, "You always knew I'd be selected to succeed to the Elder seat. It's what I was trained for all of my life. What I was _born_ to be."

"Don't pretend you don't understand."

"You are missing the point, Sarah," he retorted sharply. "This may seem political to you, but it's all for the good of the Brotherhood, now more than ever. The Outcasts need to be brought back into the fold against the true enemy, but they'd never listen to your father, or to you. And yet, they will listen to a Maxson. They will obey the Codex."

 _'I bloody well know. Doesn't make it any fairer.'_ "And the Codex is what you say it is."

He nodded. "As soon as I'm Elder, it is. By promoting me, your father officialized the succession beyond any doubt."

Her father's sick visage flickered before her eyes, drowning her annoyance. A sudden stab of grief replaced it, robbing her of her breath. He didn't have long in this world: she could see it every day in Rothchild's too wide reassuring smiles, in the new crow's feet around Cross' eyes every morning.

Arthur stepped around the desk. His calloused hand found her shoulder and squeezed.

"Sarah." His voice had lost some of its authoritative edge, just enough to show a hint of softness and longing.

"Go, Arthur. That night, it was a mistake. You and I both know it was." She swallowed and straightened. He retracted his hand and she could see the moment he put up his walls again. Not fast enough that she missed the flicker of hurt in his eyes. "Just… go. Please."

He nodded stiffly and then he was gone. Sarah leaned heavily in her office chair and stared up at the patches of mold pock-marking the ceiling, breathing the mustiness in slowly. _'I need to take some Abraxo to that before it spreads.'_ After a short few moments, she shook herself, forced down another slice of cold omelet and returned to her paperwork.

She was still trying to rub the desk off her face the next morning when Vargas brought her the news that she'd been appointed the leader of the Albatross's expedition in Arthur's stead.

0 * TTL * 0

It wasn't meant to be.

They trudged out of Megaton, a single file of four in the setting sun, dusters and parka wound tightly around their bodies against the harsh wind tossing dirt and sand in their eyes. Deputy Weld bid them goodbye, but the robot's words were lost in the screeching whine of the turbine swinging the gates shut.

Mendoza, the squat Regulator in the lead, turned his head North and sniffed. Hogarth's gaze followed his, but the Regulator turned away almost immediately, starting off down the slope, heading North-West.

"There's a storm rolling in."

"That's good," Lucy West said, lowering a pair of welding goggles to protect her eyes. "They won't see us coming."

"Means also I'll be giving you jack shit for cover if it'll be upon us before we get to Jury Street," Mendoza snapped back. He adjusted his left hand around the stock of a scoped hunting rifle, the grip awkward due to said hand missing the last two digits.

They descended into Springvale's ruins, giving Vault 101's hill a good berth under the cover of the broken townscape. The going was slow, both as not to draw the attention of the Talon sentinels on the hill and to accommodate Hogarth's wobbling pace when it came to slopes. He'd learned the difference between the Vault's solid steps and the treacherous dirt of the wasteland's declivity by slipping down Megaton's walkways a number of times, and yet it was still very much a lesson in progress.

"We'll go as far as the town hall, then turn around and head West along the overpass," Sheriff Simms commanded, eyes flickering from empty window to empty window. "Keep your doohickey out of sight until I say so."

Hogarth nodded slowly, feeling the round contours of his Pip-Boy in the pocket of his parka. He remained silent, however: he didn't trust his own voice not to betray his frustration. He kept walking behind Lucy West instead, trying to focus on putting one step after the other without stumbling or slipping on the debris that was a constant fixture as far as the eye could see. Tumbledown buildings shifted and creaked. Rusted-out framed of cars served as graves for yellowed bones a few centuries old. Huge heaps of dusty rubble spilled over what remained of the veined tarmac, forcing them to move around or hike.

Where the Vault's history vids pictured quiet neighborhoods and a sprawling city bursting with life and activity, all that he laid his eyes upon were blackened husks and ruins haunted by the cold wind blowing through crevices.

Before he cared to admit, he was stealing glances through narrowed eyes at the hill and the black-armored silhouettes on watch. His hand curled and uncurled around the hand grip of the Desert Eagle.

"Don't even think about it."

Hog arched a questioning eyebrow at Sheriff Simms, who'd fallen into step beside him. The Regulator nodded at his pistol.

"Don't play coy with me, boy. You'd be turned into a sieve before you reached the crest." He fixed Hog with a glare. "Worse, you'd put all of us and Megaton in one hell of a predicament. I'm kinda starting to like you: don't force me to shoot you. "

Hog gulped, then nodded and focused on the path ahead and Lucy's swaying hips. It didn't take long before his attention shifted back to the Vault entrance in the distance.

The Sheriff sighed. "There's nothing you can do about it right now. And if your mind's elsewhere, those junkies at Jury Street are going to make mincemeat of you."

"It's been two weeks already," Hog finally muttered through gritted teeth. _'Two weeks since Talon stormed the Vault, took everyone.'_ "How long yet?"

The Sheriff placed a paw-like hand on Hog's shoulder. "As long as it needs. Sonora doesn't have as many people at hand as she used to and this op, it ain't gonna be a small thing. Information needs to be gathered, locations scouted, escape routes prepared. There are no second chances if something goes wrong. Not for us, not for the prisoners."

"But –"

Simms shook his head with an air of finality. "We ain't gonna help anyone by charging in unprepared, only eat a whole lot of lead. Now take out that watch of yours, I wanna see what the map has to show."

Hog bit down a reply with some effort. His brief, intense experience dealing and training under the Sheriff taught him any more prying and insisting would only serve to irritate the man. _'Fuck his irritation and fuck the Regulators.'_ And yet the man remained his best chance to see something, _anything_ done. If only to keep the promise he made Amata.

 _'I'll never forsake you as long as I live.'_

The Pip-Boy needed a few seconds to power up, seconds Hog used to clasp it around his wrist despite Simms' disapproving look. It beeped and trilled as the software ran its own check-ups and synchronized with his vitals, then the Vault Boy finally gave him a thumb up. Hog brushed away some of the loose dirt that had deposited on the screen and he was finally allowed access.

"That thing will make you a target," Lucy piped up from his other side, removing her goggles to peer closer. "I heard of people going as far as to cut your arm to get one of those." A small smile curled her cracked lips. "Moira probably would."

"She wanted me to dip in the bomb's water and bust a few bones for the sake of testing," Hog recalled with a shudder as he twisted a knob to scroll through the menu, searching for the mapping app. He glanced up at Mendoza's back, but the Regulator was giving no sign he was paying any attention to the conversation. "See if rads are correlated with… whatever she did to me."

Simms stiffened and Lucy blanched, her attention suddenly on something he couldn't see, before she snapped back to the present. "Yep. Dangerous woman. Say –"

"What?"

"Easy. No need to get all defensive," Lucy hurried to say. "I was wondering, Moira's being strangely tight-lipped, but even a blind man'd see she's really excited. Giddy even, and this is Moira we're talking about. She ever told you what was in that shot she gave you?"

"Lucy…"

"Some sort of DNA-altering serum working through retrovirus or something," Hog forced himself to shrug. His medical education was cursory at best: virology had never been high on his list of priorities. "Made by a guy named Brian Virgil a while back. I think it was her boss, wherever she comes from. At least, he's the guy she named her son after." He turned to each of the Regulators. "Where does she even come from?"

"Nobody knows," Simms said laconically, his lips pursed. "She showed up one day at the gate on one of the Commons' caravans, pregnant and with her husband along. Had enough on her to refit Craterside and start the business. I don't think she's left Megaton ever since."

"That's Moira for you," Lucy chirped. "But say, how are you feeling? You were pretty banged up when we carried you out."

Hog resumed fiddling with his Pip-Boy. "She performed a bone marrow biopsy on me a couple of hours ago. It didn't even leave a scar. I'm fine. I feel good. I feel strong." _'Physically, at least.'_

He missed the look Lucy and Sheriff Simms exchanged behind his back. Quiet ensued, the rhythmic crunch of pressed gravel under their boots and the howling of the wind echoing in his ears. He accessed the folder where he'd stored the unauthorized back-up of the Overseer's archives he'd made the one time he'd been left alone five minutes with a remote access to Almodovar's console. There was no way in hell any satellites would still be orbiting the planet after two hundred years of decaying orbits, but the Vault's mainframe had stored extensive copies of satellite recordings from before the Great War.

The comparison was depressing.

It took a while to even pinpoint his location. Even placing Megaton in the florid pre-War bird's eye view turned out to be problematic: not only had the nuclear detonations destroyed landmarks, but they had changed the very lay of the land, shattering the earth and altering the landscape.

It wasn't until they walked through ruins of Tysons in the shadow on the guttered overpass interjection that Hog finally managed to pinpoint their position and place a landmark where Jury Street Metro Station ought to be. A largely futile effort, as both Simms and Mendoza needed little help navigating the chaotically silent skeleton of the pre-War city, but it made Hogarth feel a little more in control.

They were picking their way through the cluttered ground floor of the former Tysons Corner Centre, Simms and Mendoza in the lead, when Hog reached his limit with the sideways glances the blonde was shooting him.

"Just ask, for fuck's sake."

Lucy snorted, but the goggles concealed her eyes. "You're not taking this as I'd expected."

"What do you mean? The crazyhead doing fuck knows what to me? The slavers kidnapping everyone I've ever known?" _'My father working with them?'_

"Keep your voice down," she scolded. "Anyway, the first one."

Hog took a deep breath into his scarf, grimacing. He tilted his chin at Simms' back. "Nothing I can do about it now, hmm?" He sneered. That killed any further conversation for good. Ten minutes of crouch-walk navigating through the abandoned mall later, Simms called the halt and Mendoza disappeared up an escalator.

"Other side of the square, by the ramp."

The walk from Megaton to Jury Street had taken well over an hour. Only a sliver of orange tingeing the sky above the buildings' outline remained of the sun, but the moon was out. Hogarth blinked up at it, unable to repress his awe at the pale crescent and the countless dots already peppering the night sky, each and every one of them a star burning millions, billions of miles away.

"Eyes on the ground, boy."

Hog grunted, chastised, and followed Simms' pointed finger. The square didn't differ much from the rest of the ruined landscape. Chain Bridge Road, as his Pip-Boy called the causeway spanning across the square, had long since caved in, cutting the square in half. Only a narrow passage clear of rubble linked the two halves, but the rest was hidden from view.

"Look closer," Simms urged in.

A thin pinnacle of smoke rose from behind all the rubble. Narrowing his eyes, Hog noticed the faint glow of a fire as well.

More importantly, it made the profile of the single sentry stand out all the more.

"The storm's not too far," the Sheriff whispered. "We'll have to spend the night down there, so let's make this quick and silent."

"How many?" Lucy asked.

"Wolfgang said no more than a dozen, mostly stragglers from Beppo's gang. Turned tail when Talon showed up, but didn't run too far away. Then there's the asshole who's cutting molerat meat with glue, Ryan Briggs."

"Are we sure it's him, sir?"

"Positive. Wolfgang brought back a few slices. Same shit 'Wonder Meat' that poisoned Helena's boy." Simms fingered the large Smith & Wesson at his hip. "The Stahls and half the town are howling for his blood."

Lucy spat on the ground. "Bastard."

"Remember. Both of you," Simms sent a pointed look at Hog. "If you can, take the chemist alive. It'd be better to know if it's a one-man jig, of if there're more producing this shit. Don't take unnecessary risks, though. Lucy, get into position: you take the sentry."

The blonde nodded, then slipped around a wall and the night engulfed her. Hogarth tried to spot her, failing miserably in the attempt, yet his mind was on other matters.

Could he kill again?

If these raiders were donning the black of Talon, his answer would be yes. But - could he kill someone who'd never done him anything wrong? Just because people he barely knew - people who saved his life - told him they deserved it?

He could still feel the kick of the assault rifle against his shoulder, the neck of the Talon he'd surprised in the Macks' apartment snapping in his hands, the echo of the grenade he dropped as he fled detonating. But at the time, he'd been desperate. Furious. Terrified.

 ** _'When did that change?'_**

Hog swallowed bile and realized he was shaking, the Desert Eagle half-drawn in a death-grip.

Then Simms was holding him by the shoulders. The Sheriff's glare commanded his attention even in the poor light and with the wind howling closer.

"No time for doubts, Hogarth. You want to rescue the other Vaulties? Get a grip now, 'cause you'll have to kill. And kill. And then kill some more. Make bad things happen to worse people. Always scum like this, over and over. Places like Paradise Falls and the Pitt, they vomit them out day in and day out."

It wasn't phrased like a suggestion, yet Hogarth had to ask. Because nobody had asked when he was on the other side of the barricade, facing the closest thing to execution the Vault's Law allowed. At least, nobody who mattered. They'd just taken a look and convicted him.

"What did they do?"

"Take your pick. Murder, rape, theft, chems. These guys' late boss led a party through the ant tunnels under Springvale's school, killed a bunch of your Security Staff. Almost killed you." Simms' eyes burned with cold fire and disgust. "They'd have hung the bodies from spikes and meat hooks, used them for decorations."

Hogarth gagged but managed to keep his early dinner down. Then Simms moved for the heap of concrete, Lucy knifed the sentry in the kidney and Mendoza's rifle started talking.

0 * TTL * 0

It was over before he could aim his gun. Five rapidly cooling bodies torn apart by high-caliber bullets. One had fallen across the campfire, smothering it even as the flames tried to find purchase on the thick grime caking his skin and clothes. Not one had managed more than a few steps towards the metro entrance before they were sheared down. Hogarth was fairly sure there had been no return fire.

"Rule of surprise," Lucy said to his bemused expression at the carnage. "Best weapon ever, short of a nuke."

"And that's up for debate," the Sheriff grumbled. His revolver barked at the sixth raider, the only one still moaning in pain, ending his suffering. "Always remember to double tap your targets. Come on, hardest nut's yet to crack. Leave their guns there: can't have those pieces of junk jam up in the middle of the action."

Lucy gave a thumb up to the wrecked mall at Mendoza's position, then they rushed up to the metro entrance and kneeled behind the low concrete wall flanking the descending ramp.

"Remember your training in Springvale. Sweep in and clear the station, room by room. Lucy, you're on point. I'm on your seven. Hogarth." The Sheriff unslung a belt of grenades from his chest and handed them over, together with a heavy fire axe he produced from his bag. "You're on her five and on breaching duty. Up to it?"

Hog nodded and checked his gun. "I am." Simms had spent as much time teaching him how to shoot properly and maintain real guns as he had drilling everyone in turns on teamwork and breaching ops. Where the man got his knowledge, Hog couldn't guess.

"Good. Remember your training, don't hesitate and you'll be fine. Lucy, let's go."

The blonde checked around the low corner, rifle levelled at the staircase. "Clear."

They descended in a wedge formation, offset so as not to gun each other down in sharp turns, inches from the triggers. The metro's chain-link gate was well under the street-level, the metal eaten away by rust, time, and the elements. Hog nearly slipped on the garbage coating the steps, but he advanced on Lucy's other side. Together, Simms and he pulled the gate open with Lucy on overwatch, then fell back into formation.

The station was dark, the damp air reeking of mold, brahmin dung, smoke, and decay even through his scarf. A few torches and lanterns burned from alcoves and hooks. Fueling on what, Hogarth didn't want to know, but the smell gave him ideas.

"The corridor to the railway proper had caved in last time I was here," Simms whispered. Hog winced, expecting gunfire to answer in return. Instead, there was only the faint, squelching echo of their steps. "They'll have taken residence in the old shops and lobby."

Lucy called the halt with a closed fist at a bend. Hog heard it a moment later: frantic, slurring whispers and the scuttling of feet.

"Ticket booth," Simms said. "Frag them and cover your ears."

Hog nodded and drew his scarf tighter around his face, then palmed a grenade and tossed it hard over the corner. It _thwacked_ and _thudded_ as it bounced off the wall, smacked the pavement, then rolled. Someone shouted. Then the little ball of death went off with the roar of an angry god. It drowned the sickening squelch of rent and gored flesh.

Almost.

"Move!"

Lucy rounded the corner first, hugging the wall. Simms went after her and Hog had barely cleared the corner when he spotted a raider: a young man, staggering blindly out of the gutted booth and reaching for a side door through the smoke, dirt, and the coppery tang of fresh blood. His face was a ruin of jutting debris and leaking wounds. Wandering, mangled hands worried at his face and his surrounding alternatively. Moans left his skinned lips mutedly: other guns were shooting haltingly, deafening Hogarth. Whatever doubt he may have still nursed wrinkled up and evaporated.

He squeezed the trigger and his gun answered. It writhed and bucked, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, but Moira's shit had made him stronger: he barely felt it. The raider went down gurgling with two weeping craters in his side. Hog swept his assigned area, then the others' too, finding nothing.

"Clear."

"Clear."

Hog turned back to the raider, surprised and horrified to see him still trying to crawl away, to flee. The magics of adrenaline, stubbornly denying the body its death. It wasn't hard to picture their roles reversed: the corridor wasn't that different from the Vault's maintenance tunnels or the Old Levels, only bigger, dirtier, and messier.

His blood was up, every heartbeat thundering into his temples. The other man, writhing and choking on his own blood, couldn't be that much older than him either. Probably. It was hard to tell.

' _No time for doubts. Get a grip now.'_

One bullet, square in the back of the raider's skull. Hogarth managed not to flinch and checked the mag instead.

"Clear."

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: Next up, the foot presses down on the gas again._

 _Top Five Fallout Fics of the month you should really consider checking out:_

" _Where the Lines are Broken", by Perseph: a unique take to Boone after the Battle of Hover Dam. Pretty grim, definitely mature._

" _Squire Lost", by PrydwenCat: Aragorn!Teagan's squire nephew gets lost in the Commonwealth. Cue in a rich, gripping narration and some of the most humane characterizations I've ever read._

" _Divide by Zero", by kiwipixel: Cait is crazy. Nate even more so. Chem dealers and raiders of the Commonwealth, beware the mad duo drugged up to the root of their hair._

" _Walking against the Wind", by WilSquare: The Vault 101 kid's journey across quite the meaner wasteland alongside a colorful cast of well-written OCs. Bad choices abound for our 'Hero'._

" _No Place for Justice" by Alternative NonFiction: A whole bunch of people survives Vault 101 due to one Institute bloke developing a conscience for five minutes. Still budding, but quite promising all around._

 _Now, my good action of the week is spent. After a solid quarter-hour/ twenty minutes of reading, what's one more to type down a_ _ **review**_ _with your impressions? Thank you all, until next time._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Alexeij_


	11. Atom IV: Setting off

**Atom IV: Setting Off**

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel, Paladin Bailey, Disgruntledgrumkin, Alternative Nonfiction, The Desert Dancer,**_ _ **Paladin Delta** and **Guest**_ _for their reviews and critiques._

 _Fair warning for the rest of the story: some will have noticed with the mention of Tysons in the last chapter, but I'm not using Fallout 3's canon map. Or rather, I've tried to overlap it with the real world areas: turns out the compression and scaling in the game was more than a bit odd and imprecise._

 _To solve that, Alternate Nonfiction and I have been working on a large-scale Fallout map ranging the whole of the US and a bit of Canada. Regarding the Washington area in the specific, changes and implementations were in order for the game and the real map to overlap as smoothly as possible. And yet, with the scale expanded, the world of Fallout felt emptier than it already did in the game. Hence, new locations, new and different routes and so on: you'll see some in this chapter and more as the story progresses. Trying to adapt the Pitt Tunnels specifically was both a nightmare and a delicious collaborative experience that allowed us to flesh out more of the city and the areas around it._

0 = TTL = 0

It was dark outside, and loud. Hard sheets of rain battered the chipped concrete, dragging dirt and gravel down the steps: pebbles and tin cans clattered against floor grating that sucked most of the water away, yet Hogarth watched fascinated the light of the only lantern reflect wanly in the puddle spreading out at the Metro Station's entrance.

The air smelled different: metallic and muggy, but cleaner, even against the stale atmosphere of the tunnel and pungent body odor. But maybe that was the abundant helping of Abraxo to clean off his sleeves and boots of blood and vacated bowels. The bleach's tang clung to his clothes.

Dead bodies were messy. Even now, Hog could sniff the heaped corpses from behind the shop they'd been stacked in until morning after Simms and the others went around cutting their ring fingers. He tried not to think too hard about it. Or about the almost casual way the Sheriff had executed the raider chemist, Ryan Briggs, after the man had spilled his guts. Now, big-ass revolvers did make a real mess of things.

He blinked away the after-image and blew out a breath, then returned to watch the rain. His feet were itching; so were his hair and skin, begging for a good scrub.

"Better if you didn't," the Sheriff argued, reading Hog's intentions. Maybe even his mind. "The night will be cold enough without you getting all soggy. Cannot light a fire for you to dry up later."

"Why not?"

The Sheriff balanced his lantern on a turnstile, then settled down on a folded sleeping bag against the wall opposite to Hog. "There's no real fuel for a good flame, only a lot of smoke. Besides, it's raining. A lot of the wildlife out here doesn't like rain and thunders. Better not give them a big source of heat to follow."

Hog nodded slowly. He saw at least some of the sense in it. Right then, a remote flash lit up the staircase. Thunder cracked a moment later. Hog flinched as the rumbling echo rolled into the tunnel: it was as if the ground itself shook for a long moment.

"That was close," the Sheriff grumbled, then threw Hog something long and sleek. The young man snatched it from the air, then turned the assault rifle in his hands, feeling its weight more awkwardly than he cared to admit. A couple of curved mags clattered to the ground beside him.

"Aren't a hand-cannon and an axe enough for one person?" He thought he'd sewn together a decent leather strap to keep the axe slung across his back. Then Mendoza had snorted, ripped the flimsy seams open and showed him how to make a more practical one for his waist and thigh. That had been a few hours before.

"There's never too much gun in the wastes, Hogarth." The Sheriff sighed and removed his cowboy hat, rubbing his bald plate. Then, to Hog's surprise, he flipped open a zippo and lit himself a cigarette.

"You smoke?"

"Usually, I don't. I don't want Harden to take up the habit." A slow intake, a pin of light and some of the tobacco crumpled to the floor, burned to ashes. "But sometimes it helps. Like when dealing with scum like them." He waved a hand in the general direction of the shop-turned-morgue-for-fingerless-corpses.

"How are Wolfgang and his crew any better?" Hog asked after a short while. The Sheriff put out the bud and gave him a critical look.

"Watch it, boy, calling people names. Wolfgang and those like him are alright. They trade fair, for once: none of the shit Mr. Grigg over there produced. And in case you haven't noticed, they took a risk telling us where the mystery rat meat came from and who produced it. If word got out, they'd be hung out to dry by month's end."

"It's not like they did it out of the goodness of their hearts," Hog replied flatly. "Tomorrow, they'll get to take anything not nailed to the fucking floor. That's not altruism."

"So what?" Hog blinked, but Simms stared at him evenly. "They help us. We help them. At the end of the day, the raiders are dead and everyone's better off from it."

Hog had no answer to that: instead, he resumed his rain-watching – and his guard duty as well, he supposed. The Sheriff enjoyed another cigarette, then checked his wrist watch.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Start disassembling that rifle."

Hog gave him a curious look. The Sheriff was unimpressed

"Remember your fucking lessons, Hogarth. Always maintain your gear the best you can. Are you sure that gun will even shoot if you squeeze the trigger?"

The former Vaultie grumbled under his breath, yet he started picking the lightweight rifle apart with steady if slow motions. Simms edged closer and offered a few pieces of advice where Hog struggled, be it unfamiliarity or the poor illumination. The rifle was different from the standard HK33 Simms had used to train him in Megaton: rather, it resembled quite a lot the Sheriff's own weapon of choice, a bastard cross between an AK-47 and an AEK-971 of Chinese production called the Type 93 Xuanlong. Or so Simms told him: Hogarth had very little idea how either gun would look like or be called.

The Sheriff took to cleaning his own guns as he watched Hogarth work. When the assault rifle was finally reassembled in his lap, the Sheriff gave him a look from under the rim of his hat.

"Good. Once more. " At Hog's incredulity, the Sheriff held up his watch. "Lucy and Mendoza's shift start at two in the morning. Still plenty of time left, and you're less likely to take a nap if you keep your hands occupied."

Hog didn't say he wasn't really tired at all, physically at least. It would have sounded like a petulant child's whine, the kind that really got on his nerves in the last few years in the Vault, even if it wasn't. He resolved to keep quiet, and for the rest of the watch the only conversation where brief pointers and reminders for the task at hand. The manual work, fine enough not to be repetitive for a greenhorn like him, kept stray, dangerous thoughts away, at least for a time.

Yet, when Hog's head touched the sleeping bag, stiff and smelly with time and old sweat, sleep claimed him immediately. And with it came the fingerless hands clawing out of the morgue-shop, reaching out and trying to drag him back, drag him in with them, in the cold, dark place underneath the mountains.

Among them was Amata. He knew it with the certainty of madness and dreams, even if he couldn't see her. He called for her, again and again, as the struggled with the hands pulling at his ankles, grasping at his jumpsuit. Eventually, she called his name back and he heard her, heard the stifled cries of babies growing distant and faint, as if a barrier thickened between them.

The last he saw of her was a tuft of hair the color of dark chocolate, then the waters engulfed her and Hog woke up screaming.

0 * TTL * 0

Sarah dared to lean forward on the security railing of the gondola: the wind picked at her bun and beat harshly on her bare face, drying her lips and making keeping her eyes open difficult. Still, she looked around, then down. The Citadel's courtyard was fast shrinking, the people there losing detail and definition until they were little more than oblong dots. To the right, the Potomac flowed, peaceful and radioactive. The Jefferson Memorial was small enough she almost reached out to grasp it with her hand, before Gallows' stoic presence to her side had her rein in the childish, giddy thought.

Then she lifted her eyes and nearly gaped. The Citadel and D.C, the familiar background of her near entire life, looked diminutive compared to the vast, endless expanse spreading out before her, in every direction as far as the eye could see. To see what lay beyond the battle-torn skyline of D.C., even from a distance… for a moment, it made her head reel and Sarah felt small and insignificant. It was only a fleeting moment of weakness, though, but she didn't look down again as the Albatross ended its ascension and began to move northwards.

Not too far ahead, past the last clouds from the night's storm, the sky was an unchallenged, endless blue, and she was right in the middle of it.

"Enjoying the view, Star Paladin?"

Captain Kells leaned on the railing on her other side, a lipless, peaceful smile under his protective goggles. His rank uniform was already smudged dark with grease from the engines, but she had to admit the hat, the straps tied under his chin, did give him an air of authority. It also hid his blistered pate from sight.

"It's – " Words failed her for a moment and licked her lips, a bit embarrassed. The Captain only smiled knowingly.

"I know, right? There's nothing like it. No words would really do this justice."

She nodded. From above, even the mutant-packed ruins and the barren colors of the wastes expressed a forlorn charm and beauty she had never associated before with a land overtly out to kill any trespasser. Her gaze continued north, then to the west: beyond the edges of the devastated metropolis lay the hilly regions and the rocky ridges no Brotherhood scout had ever returned from.

The cold mentality of a soldier slotted back into place, sobering her fascination up. She tried to pinpoint the destinations she'd memorized, sites the Scribes had marked on the map to search for the Supermutants' lairs or pre-War tech stashes to recover. No matter how much she stared, willing for the landscape to unveil its secrets, she could actually make out little of specific from the succession of dead vegetation and bombed out towns.

Kells' gnarled index pointed north-north-west. Apparently, the ghouls' eyes were sharper than hers. She chided herself for the bitter thought: the Captain was likely more accustomed to the ways of the Flyboys, and rightly so.

"Fort Constantine is over there, ma'am. We'll be there in less than three hours at cruising speed, but I'll keep the Albatross above the kilometer line until then. This baby is a zeppelin, but I'd rather not have missiles aiming at the balloon if I can avoid it."

Sarah nodded. Falling out of the sky in a ball of fire wasn't high on her list of priorities either. And if Fort Constantine held what the Scribes had though it did for years, then a stiff resistance in place shouldn't be factored out. Not to mention every roof or tower could have a bandit or supermutant with a launcher waiting to take potshots at them and loot the carcass.

The Albatross' arrival in D.C. hadn't been exactly subtle.

"We'll recon the place from your mounted spyglasses," she decided, "then find a good location to land and scout the place from the ground." She hesitated then. On any other occasion, she'd have led from the ground herself. Leadership from the front: that's how the Pride worked.

But the Pride was a small, elite unit. Without counting the Midwesterner Flyboys, her father had placed forty-two mixed Knights, Paladins and Scribes under her command.

"Gallows? You'll disembark with Colvin and two more. I'll leave the choice to you."

The spec ops nodded once and walked away, his steps soft even with the magnetized click of his boots on the gondola's metallic floor. Sarah felt Kells' eyes boring into her skull.

"He is Circle of Steel." It wasn't a question. Nor there was any particular animosity in his tone, despite the Circle of Steel rather heinous reputation. Which, for an internal police tasked with 'correcting' doctrinal deviations from the Codex, was actually quite generous. Sarah had had to deal with no small amount of lingering suspicion from the veteran ranks when she added Gallows to the Pride's roster.

The Captain seemed curious, however. His burnt skin made it difficult to decipher his expression and the goggles hid his eyes.

"Former," Sarah corrected sternly. Her throat had dried. "He's been with our Chapter from the beginning, but he followed the Elder when he changed our directives. Came out in the open about it. The other two Circle operatives seeded in our Chapter… they didn't."

Kells nodded, looked at her and excused himself to return to the helm. Sarah remained where she was for a little longer, the pneumatic gauntlets of her power armor digging slightly in the metal of the railing.

No, those two bastards hadn't liked the shift in priorities. Not one bit. And if it hadn't been for Gallows, they would have succeeded in murdering her father too.

She took a deep breath of clean air. With that, the half-faded memories and fears of her three-years-old self receded and she was again on the Albatross, wind whipping at her face. D.C. was passing by quickly under her feet and she took one more moment to herself for sightseeing, basking in the peace of it.

Then Sarah turned smartly and marched back into the Albatross. A leader's work was never done and she would be damned if she returned empty-handed.

0 * TTL * 0

The worst of the storm rolled southeast shortly before dawn, leaving behind a smattering of foreboding leaden clouds and the air heavy with moisture that soaked hair and clothes, but already promised to be suffocating as the day progressed. Unable to get a wink of sleep after the nightmare, Hogarth was on watch while Lucy fixed breakfast – an assignment that elicited good-natured grumbles of sexism from the woman – when Wolfgang's caravan walked into view, not too far behind the first, tentative lights to the east.

The exuberant merchant - who possessed no notion of personal space violation - and his brahmins carried all manners of junk in a rattling cacophony that would have woken the dead. One particularly sharp edge, belonging to _something_ , dug into his chest when the merchant bear-hugged him.

It was a single book, however, that immediately monopolized the Regulators' attention. A moldy thing soaked in rainwater and old ink, Hog's confusion at why Simms nearly snatched it from Wolfgang lasted until the Sheriff sliced open the back cover and retrieved a small scrap of paper flattened in a plastic bag. The message was brief, only a few words in small cursive.

 _Point of Rocks Overlook. Three days._

 _S._

"This is it then. Boss's moving in, " Mendoza said. Hog barely heard him: he read the message two times, then started fiddling with his Pip Boy's map, struggling to keep his hand steady on the control knob.

' _This is it.'_ The cursor was still stuck where Hog had left it during the previous night's scroll of the map: Paradise Falls, once upon a time the small town of Beallsville. His fingers cramped up as he typed the new location and waited for the Pip-Boy to process his request.

"Hogarth."

' _This time, this is fucking it, A.'_ Yes, there it was. Point of Rocks, a town some forty miles to the northwest. Just on the Maryland's shore of the Potomac.

A shiver crept down his spine. There had been water in his nightmare; water and the cry of babies. Hogarth shook his head, banishing the thought: Simms had told him how Paradise Falls' slavers covered the first stretch of the way to the Pitt's 'Exchange Station' by boat. It was only suggestion. Just fucking suggestion.

He needed to focus. Point of Rocks: the Regulators would be there in forces. He could cover forty miles in two days, maybe less if he hurried. Two days. Only two days.

"Goddamnit, slow down!" the Sheriff barked, grabbing him by the shoulder and wrenching him around. Hog's teeth rattled as he was manhandled him like a doll. The man was glaring daggers and Hog blinked at seeing Lucy and Mendoza by the shuffling brahmins at the metro station's entrance, a little way off. He hadn't even realized he'd started walking.

"Go about like that and you'll be dead before midday, you bloody fool!"

A voice in his head told him he was wasting time, that he should move, that the sooner he was there, the sooner he'd rescue A and the others. Simms' glare made Hog deaf to the frantic urging: instead, he followed the Sheriff back to the other Regulators and Wolfgang's caravaneers. Much to his embarrassment, he felt all of their eyes on him. Some with pity, or even sympathy, like Lucy. Most others just regarded him with fundamental indifference, or curiosity addressed at his Pip-Boy.

Among all his paraphernalia and bric-a-brac, Wolfgang also sold some basic necessities like food, water, and ammo. Simms lent him the caps and kept talking his ear off, pointing out the safest route to Point of Rocks on the Pip-Boy's screen as Hogarth stacked up Cram, dried mystery meat and a few cartons of water in his backpack. On a whim, he squeezed in a couple of irradiated bottles too. Simms arched an eyebrow but said nothing about it. He had advice aplenty, though, the tone of which bore any argument whether Hogarth should follow it or not.

"Don't stray too far from the river, but don't cross the Potomac until you're at Point of Rocks. Eulogy and Talon control every bridge west of Arefu. Even if you managed to sneak north past them, from there on it's either slavers, or worse."

"Don't sleep in the open and don't light any fire if you can help it. There's a small settlement outside Leesburg here, Planky Town. It's a good place to crash, but don't show them your watch. Fort Bannister isn't far from there and you never know."

Only when the caps exchanged hands did Hog realize how much the Sheriff was actually spending on his behalf.

"Don't mention it," the Sheriff cut him short gruffly and handed him another satchel clinking with caps. "Something for the trip. Like it or not, you're one of us. Regulators look after each other."

Hog nodded briskly, looking at the Sheriff with newfound respect while guilt blossomed at the back of his throat. The man had saved his life, put his town and son in danger for his sake: in return, Hog had been using him and the rest of the Regulators and would do so again at Point of Rocks or wherever Sonora Cruz intended to spring her trap.

He tried to speak again, to put his thoughts into words, but a sudden nervousness stole the wind from his sails. Then Simms looked past his shoulder and his bushy eyebrow knitted.

"Lucy. No."

The blonde had emerged from around one of the brahmins, tying a weak strap of her pack in a knot and testing it. Her expression was determined as she held her superior's glare. "You said it yourself, sir. Regulators look after each other. No offense, Hog, but you don't know the first thing for surviving out there. That fancy watch can help you only so much."

Hog grunted a begrudging assent.

"I traveled the area when I was with Lucky Harith's caravan. And," she held up a hand when Simms made to rebuke her, "I'm still due my week leave from last quarter."

The Sheriff crossed his brawny arms." What about your family?"

She shrugged and smiled. "I'll stop by on the way back. Maybe Ian will jump in this time, he turned eighteen this spring."

' _ **There will be no trip back.'**_

' _Shut up.'_

"Fine. Knock yourself out," the Sheriff grumbled, then turned to Mendoza and signaled at him to get ready for the trip back to Megaton. As they left, he looked over his shoulder at Hog and Lucy both.

"Give them hell and come back."

The two Junior Regulators, one much more than the other, nodded at their superior, then the two groups parted and went their opposite ways through the ruins of Tysons: one southeast, the other northwest along the pre-War causeway, towards the Potomac.

They had just cleared the town center and were making their way through the rows of dilapidated suburban cottages, with their shriveled garden pock-marked by molerat nests – they skirted well around any of those - and leafless, grey-brown trunks when Hog broke the awkward silence.

"Thanks. For sticking your neck out for me."

"Aw, shucks. I was going stir crazy after a year stuck in the garrison. Dunno how Stockholm does it, day in and day out on his perch." Hog chuckled dryly at her tone and exaggerated eye-roll.

"Maybe it's the name." She looked bemused at that and Hog chuckled again, more awkwardly this time. "You know, the Syndrome and all."

Lucy cracked a smile at that, but the stiffness of it was that of confusion. Then she clapped him on the shoulder as if to infuse him with some of the determination of her face.

"Don't worry, Vault-Boy. Eulogy's boys won't know what hit them."

Hog managed a nod, but that shiver returned to chill his spine. He really didn't doubt they would succeed, not with all the Regulators the Sheriff had hinted would take part in the rescue… but what if it was too late? It had been two weeks already since Talon took the Vault.

' _ **How many will already be in the Pitt, already beyond the Regulators' reach?'**_

He tried not to think about it. He focused on his surroundings instead and on listening to Lucy's advice and 'pro-tips' at survival, but suddenly, the forty miles he'd thought were a short distance were forty miles too many.


	12. Atom V: Big Bad Wastes

**Atom V: Big Bad Wastes**

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel, Paladin Bailey, The Desert Dancer, Alternative NonFiction**_ _and_ _ **Master Doom Maker**_ _for their reviews, critique, and support._

0 = TTL = 0

The Albatross descended from the sky and touched down in the dry bed of a river an hour on foot away from Fort Constantine. Not too long after, Sarah sent them off with their orders and a nod laced with a wish of good hunting meant only for Gallows. He could feel the eyes of the two younger Knights, Kestrel and Danton, on him as they parted ways minutes later. They didn't understand his need, the hunter's urge. Only Sarah did, but she was a warrior first, bound to a warrior's mentality.

Out of the entire Pride, Colvin did the least, despite being reckoned as the most insightful and the closest thing to a counselor the Chapter had. His faith colored his views as much as Gallows' own upbringing in the Circle did his instincts. They'd never understand each other.

Ultimately, it didn't matter. They respected each other and their boundaries. It wasn't their first joint scouting either: Colvin knew enough to lead the others on a parallel path up the rocky ridges skirting around Fort Constantine. Far enough, but not so much assistance wouldn't come swiftly if needed.

The land below was Gallows' personal hunting ground.

Fort Constantine rested tucked away at the flat bottom shallow valley, the slopes marked by ashen trees and the tracks of disused roads. Taller rock formations – some natural, some the result of the seismic force of the bombs - encircled it to the north and west as well as the south, the direction Gallows came from. Not tall enough to completely hide the zeppelin's approach, however. The Knight-Captain checked his surroundings before he removed his helmets and sniffed the unfiltered air.

Faint but growing stronger, the peculiar stench of unwashed bodies filled his nostrils.

Freaks. Frankensteins. Supermutants.

The helmet slotted back into place with a hiss. Gallows set off into the woods.

The Circle's instructors drilled three words into every cadet, a malapropism of an old U.S. army motto. Adapt, Survive, Thrive. When Gallows and his late fellow black ops specs had come to D.C., they all had enough Stealth Boys to go by. Twenty years of unexpected, grinding warfare and even the ones taken from the other two's bodies had quickly run out. Only a small, emergency stash was left for the rainy days, one he hadn't touched yet in over a decade.

He'd taken the words of his instructors to heart instead, and built on their training to new ends. It had made him a hunter, where before he was a glorified assassin. His mindset changed with his evolving skill set as well, so much that when the Western Elders sent a new unit from the Circle after the Outcasts' secession, they never even saw him coming. After that, the attempts on Elder Lyons' life had stopped.

The muties didn't see him coming either. There were three of them forty meters away, advancing ponderously up the road from an old visitor center. The one at the front was larger and hunched over: arms strong enough to snap his spine bulged obscenely under the metal plaques of his armor. The minigun looked comparatively toy-like in those huge hands. It wouldn't be long for the abrupt growth spurt that turned the elder Frankensteins created by this strain of the FEV into Behemoths.

Gallows flattened behind a trunk and observed them, loosening his ripper and silenced SMG in their holsters. Lasers were good, but lasers were noisy and visible.

His heart almost skipped a beat when the master moved closer to his position and he got a good look at the second mutant. Green, where the others were dirty shades of yellow. But it was the armor it wore that made the Knight's eyes narrow. Not welded together scrap, but a well-fitting set of combat armor ceramics only reinforced here and there with second rate scrap.

Worse still was the bearing. Its strides were heavy but not graceless, its posture straight and coiled. The beady eyes under the pronounced brow sparked with frightening intelligence.

A flickering thought carried the stories of the Master's army to the fore before he relentlessly squashed it.

' _Eliminate the threat first. Leave the conjectures for later.'_

Gallows threw a decoy and flitted out of cover in the opposite direction. Endless practice and the mods to his power armor silenced his steps on the brittle soil, an extra precaution necessary against the muties' sharp hearing. He circled around his prey, a gray shadow closing in on a gray background. When he was only a few meters away from the last on the line, he switched the decoy on with a small remote.

The registered cackle of ferals echoed from the mutants' right, drawing their attention and the muzzle of their weapons with it. Gallows slithered in from the left, capitalizing on the distraction.

The ripper's low whirring was cut short by the squelch of shredded flesh and bone. The flanged chainsaw carved under the helmet of the largest supermutant and Gallows barely felt any resistance as it bisected its spine. The colossus dropped dead, taking the blade with it. Gallows' silenced 12.7 mm belched a short burst at the green mutie before the body touched the ground. At point blank range, the heavy caliber rounds tore through the combat armor and into the mutant. Green arterial blood spurted from its navel to its collarbone and the mutant fell on its knees, its face warped in an expression of almost human pain.

Gallows silenced the building scream by crushing its windpipe with a power-armored fist, then stepped into the last supermutant's super-sledged swing. The shaft connected with his pauldron and most of the force in the swing dispersed into the kinetic dampeners built into his armor. Gallows squeezed the trigger and what remained of the hateful mutant's face slackened, a fine mist of blood, bone and gray matter all that remained of the back of its head.

A foot slammed onto the tarmac behind him. Gallows spun, crouching on instinct. The green mutie's fist flew over his head and Gallows slammed into it with a low whine of servo-motors. He pressed its laser rifle between their bodies, muzzle low, as he reached for his backup knife. The mutie's eyes had assumed a more familiar look, one of pain, disgust, and rage, but Gallows' worst suspects were confirmed when it spoke: gravelly and in pain, but other than that, it articulated better than most raiders.

"You'll die, human. Adam will purge you and the rest of your Brotherhood, but not before you witness the Ascension."

The mutie coughed blood in his face, splattering his visor, but its strength was failing it. Gallows drew the blade and slammed it under its ear with a wet thud. The light went out from those intelligent eyes.

The Knight checked his surroundings and meticulously gathered his weapons, then dragged the bodies out of sight with some effort. Not matter his training and the power armor, he was slowly approaching the latter part of his forties, his prime long past him. And mutants were heavy.

It was only as he stood over the body of the green skin that Gallows noticed the mark burned onto its breastplate by a poker: an eye, staring out of a triangle decorated with three sets of short lines perpendicular to each side. The other two sported it as well, but burned into the skin of their foreheads. Same imprint, same shape.

The lines on Gallows' face deepened and he tapped into the radio set built into his helmet.

"Gallows to Albatross."

Sarah's voice came out scratchy from the old speaker. _"Albatross here. Come in, Gallows."_

"We've got a problem."

0 * TTL * 0

In his week in the outside world – well, two, but he'd been out like a light for the first seven days or so – Hog had left the Regulators' barracks only for the check-ups with Moira, his shifts, and the Sheriff's training sessions. Lucas Simms never took him and the others far from the town walls and always out of sight from the Vault, but the farthest he'd walked until the previous day had been the outskirts of Springvale and the few houses there where he'd learned the basics of breaching and room sweeping.

The ravaged landscape of Tysons had been depressing and melancholic, but Hog had been too focused on staying alive.

By contrast, the long hours walking along the Potomac where an eye opener.

"Jesus Christ."

From the vantage point of the hill they were skirting around, Hog could see for miles and miles in nearly every direction. And what he saw was dead, ravaged, and empty. Craters pock-marked the land on both shores of the Potomac, the glassed terrain catching the sun's glare and shining in an entrancing, disquieting way. If he'd thought Tysons was bad, even from a distance he could tell the area around each crater was in near total ruins, the very topography altered dramatically by the Chinese carpet-bombing of the region.

"Welp, it's gone."

Lucy's disappointment drew him out of his contemplation. The zeppelin she'd been looking at was barely a dark dot in the distance, growing smaller. The Regulator dusted herself off and rose from the boulder she'd been resting on. "Let's get going. The miles won't cover themselves."

The hours-long march had extolled its due from Hogarth, much to his surprise. Years of daily training had left his body supremely conditioned and Moira's serum, whatever that was, helped to deal with fatigue as well. However, Vault life was stationary and claustrophobic, ill-suited to prepare for the long march on the treacherous terrain Lucy was leading him through. A couple of hours in, Hog's legs and back had started to cramp, only worsening as they stacked up the miles.

They dumped the empty food cans that had been their lunch and soon were on the road again. The convoluted path Lucy picked for them didn't really deserve that name, however. They kept well off the road, the Potomac a constant fixture to their left, with its rumbling waters and insect swarms buzzing along the shores. From that distance, he couldn't be sure how big they actually were, only that they were bigger than the flies buzzing around Lucy and him like the blood-sucking predators they were.

Regeneration or not, he didn't fancy meeting their mutated counterparts. A frown climbed on his face as the thought rooted into his brain and branched out. Lucy picked up on his mood but missed the target.

"How bad is it?"

It was the first piece of not survival-related conversation since they set off. "I'm sorry?"

"This," Her hand swept to encompass the wastes. "You've got the look of someone who can't believe what he's seeing. How worse is it from before?"

He contemplated the wastes for a few moments, unsure of how to respond. Then his eyes roamed east, over the jagged profiles of D.C.'s skyscrapers, and south. Billy's words about white coats taken south by Talon nudged forward. James was there, somewhere, in the complete opposite direction to where he was going.

He spoke before he went any further down that line of thought. "We had books and holofilms back in the Vault. Mr. Brotch, he was my teacher at school, used to show us movies and documentaries about the world that was, on how the Vault was the last holdout of the old U.S.." Growing up, he'd reckoned it was all trite propagandist bullshit out of Almodovar's book, but looking around now at the hell on Earth, doubt took hold somewhere at the back of his mind.

"Dad gave Ian this old picture book for his birthday when we were little," Lucy said when the silence stretched for too long. They were descending down the side on the hill now. Up ahead, Hog could see one of the craters: every building around them had been flattened long ago, either by the shockwave or time. "Looking back, it was a rotting mess. I couldn't begin to tell you what it was about, but a couple of pages still had some nice pictures. One was this tall statue of a woman on an island, holding a book and some kind of torch." She pantomimed the position. "And there was a city behind her, large boats in the water. I may be only a wastelander, but that city didn't look anything like D.C."

"New York."

Lucy gave him an odd look. "What?"

Hog shrugged. "The city's name, New York. It's some States north from here, I think." Old World geography hadn't been high on his list of priorities either. "That picture was of the Statue of Liberty, the first thing people from the old continent saw when reaching the States by boat." She gave him a hesitant nod, her mind parsing the information and another half-dozen question on her lips. They didn't stay there long.

For the next hour, Hog regaled Lucy with some disparate bits of what he remembered from his visits to the Vault's public library. That had been one of the few places she could find some quiet after his estrangement from the rest of the Vault and while the shelves didn't offer anything like weapon manuals or anything 'unrest-inducing' by the Overseer's standards, the collection had been pretty rich and varied.

Her curiosity seemed inexhaustible, but the more he spoke, the more the air of melancholy around his retelling thickened. Speaking of a world long expired in nuclear fire while surrounded by what little remained wasn't exactly a balm for troubled spirits. He wondered if the Statue of Liberty still stood. Somehow, he doubted that.

"You know, this place seems even shittier now," Lucy said after a while. "They say there's bliss in ignorance. I think I get why now."

Hog opted to remain silent. His infamous speech as valedictorian, the thing that set the ball rolling those years ago, had touched on that same topic. Had the rest of the Vault being ignorant, or simply accepting of the status quo? They certainly had been ignorant of the threat lingering outside the Vault's door.

' _And look at where that got all of us.'_

"You know what really drives it home? More than the ruins and this fucking heat?" He changed the subject, loosening the parka's buttons to try and cool down his body. "It's silence." It was rarely ever silent in the Vault, what with all the echoes in the cramped corridor. "Every video they showed me, every book and picture told or implied that millions of people lived here. Millions."

He shook his head, struggling with his words. "It's so many people I don't even think I can imagine all of them. And they all lived in this place. Now, it's practically empty, so much it seems we're the only people for miles. Well, almost."

Lucy followed his finger, pointed at the Potomac. She grimaced at the bugs there and the distinct profile of a bridge in the distance. "Nope, I don't think you'd like to meet most of the things usually squatting about. We're going further inland for a bit to avoid that bridge, then loop around. I'm pretty sure Talon garrisons that."

Hog's nostrils flared, but the flare of anger was as brief as it was impotent. There was nothing he could do about it. As Simms said and Lucy's pointed look reminded him, he had to learn to pick his fights.

"Got it."

The rest of the afternoon passed under the mechanical stomping of boots over gravel and dirt. Gunfire would explode in the distance from time to time, always out of sight and too far away for them to do anything. Another thing he learned quickly was that sound carried a long way in the wastes, making judging distances a tricky practice.

Lucy adjusted their route a couple of times, perusing Hog's Pip-Boy from time to time to check the lay of the land. From the marker Simms had put on his map, Planky Town stood at the edges of Leesburg, inside and on the roof of a Super Duper Mart general store.

They'd just passed under the faded ad board promoting some kind of Halloween special sale at the Market two hundred years expired when Hog spotted movement among the cars dotting the parking lot at the store's entrance. The sweet stank of rot coupled with the metallic smell of blood the hit him a moment later, a powerful waft that had him gag and almost double over sick.

That's when a dog started barking and Hogarth was introduced to his first zombie.

0 * TTL * 0

The Brotherhood descended on Fort Constantine hiding in the last lights of the setting sun, their forces divided in a pincer maneuver to pin the muties into their position and then smash them open like rotten tatos.

Needless to say, no plan survived first contact with the enemy. In Sarah's case, the proverbial wrench had manifested in the shape of pre-war robots stiffening up the freaks. And all of a sudden, Gallows' talk of intelligent Frankensteins up and about became much more real.

"Beta team, suppress those lodgings!" She ordered into the radio set of her helmet as she sent a short burst of laser fire into a rampaging Mr. Gutsy, blowing its grav-thruster and turning it into a heap of metal. "Gamma, ready to flank Maryland as soon as Beta is in place." The ayes in response were drowned out by a missile shrieking through the air and impacting into an old truck a dozen meters away only moments after the two Knights taking cover behind it, Fromm and Keaton, dashed off. The vehicle's fusion core had long been removed, but the explosion still picked up the two Knights, throwing them several meters away.

"Delta! Heavies on the main complex. Take them down!" The sniper team made of Gallows, Colvin, and Dusk offered their reply by placing a trio of rounds into the supermutant at one of the windows as it tried to chamber another missile. "Vargas, Artemis, take Fromm and Keaton into cover and check them. Alpha team, advance!"

Glade, Kodiak, and Initiate Danse abandoned cover with her just as Bravo team, led by Paladin Tristan, opened up on the muties' position in one of the personnel lodgings closer to the command center and the armory. Their miniguns and gatlings tore into the old plaster and concrete as Sarah's team and Gamma team rounded around the lodgings in a two-pronged attack from the left and right – flank Oregon and flank Maryland respectively.

" _Alpha, this is Delta,"_ Colvin related flatly across the radio. _"Two Sentry Bots and thirteen muties approaching your position from CC."_

"Roger that. Whittle them but keep suppressing their heavies, we'll take the rest." Sarah signaled at her team to move forward and take cover on either side of the main road leading into the inner courtyard, surrounded by a blasted-apart chain-link fencing. They complied, but not before Danse capped a plasma grenade and tossed it into the lodgings. They lit up a moment later, the hollers and screams inside cut short as Gamma team breached from the other side and cleared the room.

"Brandis, sitrep!"

" _We're meeting stiff resistance, ma'am,"_ the Midwesterner growled over the line. She could hear the whirring staccato of energy weapons and heavy ordinance from his position even without the radio. _"Three KIA so far, but we're making good progress. ETA six minutes, east-north-east."_

"Copy that. Bravo team, advance Maryland. Pin the reinforcements in place! Glade, time for Little Boy!"

The burly Paladin actually barked a laugh over the comms that managed to break through the renewed exchange between the Brotherhood and the fresh Supermutant forces. All were heavily armed and branded on the forehead, she noticed as she placed a trio of shots in the belly of the lead one. None wore the custom armor of Gallows' victim, but that was only a small comfort when the Sentry Bots rolled into view, the missile pods mounted on their chassis open and filled to capacity. She had to duck under their barrage of laser fire. One of Tristan's Knights wasn't so lucky and was hit in the hip as he turned away.

"Vargas, need med support on Tristan's position!" She lobbed a grenade over her cover, but Danse's had been the last of their plasma allotment. The frag shrapnel maimed a couple of supermutants, sending them to the ground howling, but pinged harmlessly of the war robots' thick plating. "Glade, hurry the fuck up! They're zeroing on our position!"

" _Ready here, ma'am. Gimme some cover!"_

"You heard him!" She followed her own advice and leaned out of cover, sending a barrage of lasers in the direction of the supermutants. The surviving freaks were dispersing from their advance column, moving for cover or using the Sentry bots as such in a display of tactical awareness that left Sarah cursing under her breath. Tristan's laser gatling tore a scorching line across their ranks, drawing the attention of one of the bots as well.

" _TARGET-ACQUIRED,"_ the machine cawed. _"DEPLOYING-EXPLOSIVE-ORDINANCE."_

" _Fire in the hole, motherfucker!"_

Glade abandoned his cover in one smooth movement, unencumbered by the Fat-Man propped against his shoulder. He stood still for a moment, then the catapult slung its payload in an arc. Sarah didn't need to order everyone to take cover. Not that anyone would have heard her over the thundering detonation and the radioactive heat washing over their armors.

It took a few long moments for the ringing in her ears to subside. Then she heard Glade laughing over the radio and took a look, knowing already what to expect. Where a moment before a dozen muties and the bots had stood, now remained only a couple smoking metal chassis and mutant corpses half-fused by nuclear fire, the dirt and sand around them glassed into tiny shards.

At that moment, like every time Glade brought his Little Boy to bear, Sarah was acutely thankful for the HEPA filters in her breathing unit.

"Team leaders, sitrep."

" _Bravo operational, but Paladin Jensen's wounded. Armor breached but his conditions are stable."_

" _Gamma operational, ma'am. Missing Keaton and Fromm."_

" _Delta on overwatch. They're retreating into the CC."_

" _Vargas here. Keaton is dead, Fromm heavily wounded. He needs immediate med-evac."_

" _Brandis here with Echo and Foxtrot. We're closing in on your position, ma'am. Muties are retreating."_

It took Sarah only a moment to pick their next move. The losses stung, but the time for mourning would come later. If she got distracted, the tally would only stack up.

"Albatross, you've got two wounded inbound, prep the med bay. Gamma, head to Echo's position and cut off the muties' retreat there. Danse, help Jensen's to Vargas and assist with the med-evac." The Initiate had held admirably under live fire and didn't protest to his removal from the battlefield. The blood hadn't got to his head then. Gunny had trained him well. "Alpha and Bravo will proceed to the Fort's Command Center and secure the perimeter. Watch out for mines and bots: as soon as Echo and Foxtrot link up, we sweep the complex. Delta, if anyone pops their head out, you cap them."

A chorus of ayes resonated on the radio from the team leaders and the Brotherhood was moving again. Sarah couldn't help the grim satisfaction and excitement coursing through her veins under a tight leash. After the upheaval of the past few weeks, being on the field again was like easing into a pair of gloves that had just started to go stiff from disuse. Guilt bit briefly on her conscience at the Brothers freshly dead in the assault, but she knew she was doing her very best leading them and had nothing to blame herself for.

Casualties in war were sad, especially when you could put a name and an anecdote on almost every face, but hardly surprising when assaulting an entrenched position. She'd grown up seeing the number of familiar faces around her thinning over the years as D.C. took its toll. She knew how her men felt, what they risked, because she had lived through the same with them, on the frontline and at home both. And that was why she could bear the burden of leadership. Why she had to.

' _Arthur or my dad couldn't do any better.'_ She shooed the bitter thought away, her attention fully to the fight at hand. This was where she belonged. On the battlefield, leading her Brothers and Sisters to victory.

0 * TTL * 0

"What in –"

"The legs! Aim for the legs!"

Lucy followed her own advice and opened up on the shambling figures stagger-charging out of the parking lot, growling and cackling. The bark of her rifle shook Hog out of his horrified stupor, his eyes as wide as saucers. His hands awkwardly extended the assault rifle's collapsible stock and he opened up full auto, spraying the things with lead in a wide, low arc.

"Trigger discipline!" Lucy yelled, panic boiling in her voice. "Don't lose it, Vaultie!"

The zombies were fast, in their uncoordinated way. They bounded forward, leaping and swaying on rickety legs, sinewy arms flailing and reaching forward with gnarled hands. They smelled of rot and gore, the choking stink tear-inducing and growing by the second. Beastly sounds came from twisted mouths full of broken teeth and blackened gums dripping with blood.

Bullets scythed through their legs, dropping half a dozen into trashing heaps on the tarmac. Some howled, other growled, but none showed signs of being in pain, clawing forward where their legs didn't support them. It didn't matter: more came, stomping over their kind in a mad dash towards Hog and his juicy brain.

 **' _Don't think about it!'_**

The rifle clicked dry and Hog went for another mag, but he fumbled with his belt and the clip clattered on the ground. Hog didn't have time to curse when the first zombie leaped at his throat.

Years of CQC training with Officer Gomez kicked his senses into overdrive. Hog twisted his body like a whip and smashed the butt of his rifle into the thing's temple, deflecting its momentum. Or so he thought, until the head smashed open like an overripe melon and the rest of the body smacked into him.

Hog staggered back and pushed the dead – deader body away. Lucy was falling back, her words incomprehensible over the staccato of her revolver striking true. Then another zombie jumped at Hog and it was like back in the Old Tunnels with the ants, only this time the fuckers were bigger and faster, but he was armed too.

The large part of his brain screaming that _this wasn't fucking possible!_ fell silent. Hog focused on his breathing, shutting out the abhorrent visage of the zombies and concentrating only on surviving the onslaught.

He backpedaled, sending two charging zombies off-track, and drew the Desert Eagle as well as the fire-axe in a short-handled grip. The gun was steady in his hand and while firing one-handed was a bitch, there was little missing the fuckers as they barreled at him. He put three shots into the nearest chest then swung around, pistol-whipping another in the face as the axe slashed open another from shoulder to hip. Lucy shouted again and Hog turned to her in time to see her sinking her knife into a zombie's face, only to be tackled to the ground by another.

Hog punched a zombie in the face, broken teeth sticking into his padded gloves, and kicked the thing on top of Lucy in the side with all his strength. Ribs shattered and the zombie flew a few feet away but Hog stumbled as another leaped onto his back, wrapped its hands around his torso and bit into his shoulder.

The Vaultie dropped the gun as agony washed over him. His other hand, the one holding the axe, lashed out over his shoulder and the metal head caved the zombie's skull in. It let go in a squirt of Hog's arterial blood, taking away a chunk of parka and flesh underneath. Hog's knees buckled, his head spinning. Lucy picked up his gun, unloading the last of the clip into the nearest zombies: her face was a mask of blood flowing from her forehead and a mix of anger and sadness flickered over it as the Desert Eagle clicked dry.

"Take it!"

Hog shoved the fire-axe into her hands and rose swinging at a jumping zombie. The one-two combination that busted its jaw and cracked its temple, sending it into a heap on the road. Moira's shit had already stymied the blood loss from his shoulder, knitting the muscles back together. It was called upon again as a zombie's jagged nails raked over the side of his face and neck before Hog headbutted it and threw it over his shoulder into a gaggle, dislocating its arm in the process.

Before he could get his bearings again, he was tackled to the ground by a big one. Hog grabbed at its neck and shoulder, trying to dislodge the big bastard off him as its jaws snapped too close to his throat. Even emaciated as it was, the zombie must have been a big man in life. Its free hand slapped and clawed at Hog's face, missing his eyes by inches and tearing off the skin from his cheek instead. Hog gasped in pain and kneed the zombie in the groin without success. More were approaching fast. One fell with Lucy's axe into its skull.

Growing desperate and blind with his own blood, Hog grabbed the zombie's head by each side and twisted it with all of his strength. The neck snapped with a sickening grinding of bones and Hog shoved the body off. He staggered to his feet in time to kick the next one square in the chest, shift and follow up with a snap-kick into the jaw on another behind him. Lucy stormed in then, swinging the axe wildly and lopping off a grasping arm before she steadied herself against his back, drawing a ragged breath.

Zombie blood, green and yellow more than red, pooled in the cracks of the road. A least another half-dozen zombies circled around them, snapping their jaws and growling. Apparently, their brains were not so rotten they didn't recognize danger when it started killing them.

"Guns?" He asked, struggling to control his breathing. In and out. In and out.

"Somewhere in the mess. What about you?"

"Got my fist and legs."

She chuckled at that and shifted her grip on the axe's slick handle. "Snazzy."

As if linked to a single mind, the zombies lunged. Two shambling steps in, a loud bark made Hog flinch. A blur of fur and teeth, and then there was a huge dog tearing into a zombie's throat like it was puppy food.

 **' _Ghouls first!_ _'_**

Hog kicked a zombie in the face, then cried in pain as another's mandibles closed around his forearm. Tears streaking down his face, he punched the zombie in the throat twice, forcing it to let go with a wet snap, then drove two fingers into one of its jaundiced eyes and kicked its knee in. The zombie fell and Hog stomped on its skull with his boot, then made to tackle the one grabbing at Lucy, but the dog was faster.

It drove the zombie to the ground in the blink of an eye and ravaged its neck with teeth as sharp as razors. Lucy slammed the pick of the axe into another zombie's face, smashing it in like a doll's, and then Hog found himself jerking his head left and right for a target that just wasn't there. The crippled ones they'd gunned first weren't moving, their throats ripped apart in large sprays of blood.

The axe's head clunked on the ground, making Hog jump. Lucy was leaning heavily into it, using it as a crutch as the adrenaline ebbed out of her system Disbelief was painted on her face and she bleeding lightly from her forehead and through the torn tissue of her duster. Hog was sure he was mirroring her look, even with one cheek torn open and the other side of his face a bloody ruin. He could feel the flesh knitting back already.

Lucy looked over at him, studying him, her eyes on his healing wounds. A tired smile curled her lips.

"You're like a bad Grognak joke."

"Says the one with the bloody axe." Hog's eyebrow arched in surprise. "Wait a sec. You know of Grognak the Barbarian?"

"Of course I know of Grognak the fucking Barbarian. I'm not illiterate."

They lost it then, peals of laughter coming out mixed with wheezes as they hugged their sides. Maybe it was relief, the tension seeping away. Maybe it was the paradoxical situation of two people from complete different extractions talking about comics with dead zombies littering the ground around them and a huge fucking dog –

Hog's laughter died and his eyes snapped to the last zombie corpse, but the dog wasn't there anymore, the only trace it was ever there a collection of torn throats and a few bloodied paw prints.

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: How to make a fight against ghouls tense? Take away the guns. I hope you all got your fix of action in this chapters, as the past few were sorely lacking in that department. Don't forget to leave a_ _ **review**_ _with your thoughts and criticisms on the chapter and the evolution of the plot. Don't disappoint that lovely rectangular box: it's begging you to write into it._


	13. Atom VI: Between a Rock

_**Atom VI: Between a Rock…**_

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **The Desert Dancer, Master Doom Maker, Paladin Bailey, Aegon Blacksteel, Alternate NonFiction, Pro Assassin, WilSquare, PartyPat22, Jacob Sailer**_ _and_ _ **Jem Cottage**_ _for their reviews, critiques, and support. We capped 100 reviews here as well, huzzah! There are still many more spots open in the "thanks-a-lot" entry of every chapter everyone. Just so you know._

0 = TTL = 0

The adrenaline from the wild melee was ebbing. With it, the mental barriers Hog had erected to shove away the painfully obvious weakened. Vault 101 had given him more practice on that than he'd ever need in a single lifetime, or so he thought. This wasteland he was stuck into was apparently out to prove him silly and naive at every turn.

First, giant ants. Then jackshit hybrids and cowboy going all gung-ho on fuckers drugged out of their ears for a few slab of said hybrids' meat. An atom bomb made a local monument. A completely bonkers mad lady that tweaked his DNA like a game of Shanghai due to bad calligraphy. Ghost dogs. And now, zombies.

Zombies who'd bitten him. Several times.

Hogarth studied the healed up teeth-marks with a dubious look, half-forgotten horror stories and b-movies - only a few of the distractions offered by the Vault recreational system - proliferating like critters in the Old Levels. The flesh was mended, but ghost pain still stung, feeding his creeping worry as he pictured the virus snowballing into his system.

"Say, Lucy." The calmness of his voice surprised him.

The blonde swallowed a couple of antibiotics, then finished cleaning the barrel of her assault rifle of zombie miscellaneous gore - with her bare hands, he noticed - and pieced the gun back together. "Hold the questions for later, Vault Boy. We need to check Planky Town for survivors."

The entrance of the old mall beckoned like a gaping dragon's maw at the other end of the parking lot. Hog's head retreated behind the car he was using as cover and stared at Lucy, frowning.

 _'She's not looking at me funny. And she hasn't put one between my eyes yet. Maybe it's long term and she'll wait until we've swept the place?'_

Lucy sighed. "Alright. Spit it out. We need to get moving fast."

"Right. These things, their bite... they aren't contagious, right?"

Lucy looked at him, poleaxed. "You mean the radiation?" She tried, her words slow. "The average ghoul doesn't emit any, far as I know." She tilted her chin at him. "And whatever Moira did to you should cover for infections from the bites. It did when it fixed you up the first time." She didn't look too sure of that last bit. Hogarth chambered a round in his rifle, wondering idly if he'd need to put it into his own skull next.

 _ **'Let Burke get away with everything then. You're that kind of man, right? What about Amata, hero?'**_

 _'Shut up. Not much I can do about it if my diet will be restricted to flesh and brains.'_

"No, no. I mean the whole zombie-eat-brains thingy." He arched an eyebrow, her last words registering fully through the incessant chatter in his own head. "Wait, what do you mean by 'ghouls'?"

Confusion spiked on Lucy's face, then melted away into a frown like ice in an oven. "Wait a sec - hasn't the sheriff given you a rundown of all the shit out here? Because ghouls are as basic as you get, especially in the city."

"Now, that's a comforting thought. I wouldn't call that leaping bunch of nonsense basic, thank you." He tilted his chin at the various bandages wrapped snuggly around her shoulder and arms. She conceded with a begrudging snort. "Anyway, no. Not a word on that." _'He was too focused on teaching me how not to shoot myself or anyone with anything bigger than a BB gun.'_ It really was really no wonder he'd missed Burke from so close back in the Vault's atrium.

Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose, dragging him out of his thoughts before they could swallow him. "I can't believe this." She shook her head. "Fine. Let's go, I'll keep this brief." She gave him a look, an exasperated smirk curling her lips. "And stop fretting, you ain't turning into a zombie anytime soon. Vaulties..."

By the time they slammed in cover on each side of Planky Town's mall entrance, Hogarth's head was spinning.

"That doesn't make any sense. Not one bit."

"I don't know what to tell you," the blonde shrugged, then peered inside.

"No, listen. It's too wrong, even by the Outside's standards." He nudged a dead zombie... ghoul sprawled across the door, half its face blown off, the other half decomposing. "How do they move so fast? How can they hit so hard? Their muscle tone is gone to hell, their tissues are dehydrated right behind it. They shouldn't even be crawling, and the only explanation anyone has is radiation?"

"Yep, kind of." She nodded at the inside, nonplussed. "Come on, coast's clear. The settlement proper is on the second floor."

Sunlight filtered in wide swathes from a collection of large cracks and missing portions of the ceiling. Gangplanks cut across the chasm, casting feeble shadows on the floors below. The final effect was almost painful to the eye, with light and darker areas alternating every other step.

Hog kept his eye down the assault rifle's iron sights, covering Lucy's six as she led the way hugging a row of long shattered and emptied shop windows to the nearest escalator.

"Radiation exposure doesn't work like that," he whispered harshly, struggling to keep the disbelief from pitching his tone. "It doesn't make zombies. It destroys and lays waste to tissues. It gives you cancer, not super strength. Not even Mackay ever theorized shit like that, and his ideas are the closest to the crazy stuff I've seen out here so far."

Lucy snorted. "Tell that to Gob."

Hog frowned. "Who's Gob?"

"The bartender at Megaton's saloon? Right, Sheriff told you to give it a berth. I heard that before the Regulators set up shop in town, he was one collar short of a slave – Oh shit, you smell that?"

If the living ferals had stunk and the dead one at the door made his eyes water, the miasma that rolled over him as he hit the top of the escalator turned his stomach into mush, then proceeded to force it out of his body. Hog staggered, then leaned over a cracked banister and barfed all over the ground floor with a resounding splash.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," he breathed out, then spat and grabbed a bottle of water, rinsing acidic bile from his mouth. Dead radroach, by comparison, smelled of cologne. "What in the world –"

The remains of a campfire sat snugly in the middle of the walkway, a collection of bicycle tires and cold ash surrounded by a circle of busted crates and moldy, deformed armchairs. A roast spit laid across it, some kind of charred, blackened meat still speared on it.

The sickening smell came from there. It took Hog a few moments to spot the toes and cracked nails on one end. His breakfast joined his lunch on the ground floor in one big puddle.

Lucy's face was green under the kerchief she wrapped tightly around her mouth and nose. "We need to move up," she said, her voice muffled and weak with nausea. "See if there are any survivors."

One dead escalator later, they drew up to the once proper entrance of Planky Town. Some kind of heavy ordinance had blasted the main door open, leaving a jagged wound in the barricade of welded metal plates, masonry and nailed planks. Other sections looked like they'd been torn apart by monstrous hands, strong enough to bend and rip metal.

They found only two bodies inside, where cots indicated at least thirty used to live. Neither was missing a leg, but both of them sported several broken bones, most notably their necks. One looked like he'd been thrown through a wall.

The ghouls had feasted on both. Hog was acutely glad he had nothing else to throw up.

"There are drag marks everywhere," Lucy said after a while. "They took almost everyone prisoner." Hog noticed her pack was bulging where it didn't before. She met his gaze unapologetically. "They don't need it anymore and we need all the supplies we can for the journey. Especially if we chance on someone who managed to escape… this."

Hog nodded absently, his silence mirroring the proforma conviction in Lucy's voice. He looked around for anything worth grabbing but spotted more scenes of utter devastation and brutal disregard. Crayon figures on yellowed papers hung from a fridge door ripped off its hinges. Hog looked away, swallowing a familiar sense of dread.

"Who did this? More ghouls?"

Their steps echoed hollowly in the dead mall as they descended the staircase. Hog wrapped the shemagh tighter around his face. It did help some with the fetor of death, though he was sure it'd clung to his clothes, even his skin now and would follow him incessantly.

"No." Lucy shivered. "This looks like the stories I heard from the Deadlands."

"The what now?"

"The Deadlands," Lucy repeated, a cold edge in her voice. She didn't turn back to look at him. "West of here, near the mountains. There used to be many communities out there when I was a teen. Then they started dropping off the map, one at a time." She swallowed and looked around, her finger on the trigger. "The caravans that ventured out there spoke of crashed towns infested with ferals. Then caravans started disappearing as well, so the Regulators went in. Then Talon did. Fuck nobody got back but Super Mutants and more Super Mutants." She finally gave him a look, a pleading one. "Please tell me the Sheriff told you about them."

"He did. Big, orange, scary as all hell and twice as dangerous, but not the sharpest tool in the shed?"

"You forgot flesh eater, but that's them. And that was them here. Holy shit!" Lucy smacked herself on the forehead, then took off like the devil was nipping at her heels. Hog blinked, then chased her, jumping the steps three at a time.

He caught up to her by the main entrance, over the dead ghoul. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. "Wait up! What's going on?"

"Look over there!" she snapped at him, wrestling her arm free. He followed her hand and after a moment, he spotted the last of daylight reflecting off the waters of the Potomac. "That's the river. Our side of the river. Fuck! From here they could be at Arefu or Megaton in less than half a day's march. I've got to warn my family."

Hog made to protest, to argue that she couldn't leave him out to dry halfway there. Then he caught the hypocrisy in the words about to leave his mouth and bit hard on the inside of his cheek.

"We'd have found tracks on the way here if that was the case," he said instead. "That, and all the Talon patrols we danced around. I don't think big and lumpy would manage that."

"You cannot understand until you've seen one for your own. Just… I have to go, Hog." She fixed him with an inscrutable look. "I'm sorry. I know I said I'd help you see this through, but it's my family. I need to go."

Hog closed his eyes and let out a long breath. He nodded and glanced at the horizon and the setting sun there. "It's alright, Lucy. I… cannot ask you to value mine over your own. I know I wouldn't. Better if we camp 'till dawn before we set off, though."

"Right. You're right." She offered him a tentative smile and punched him on the shoulder. "You're learning, Vaultie. And… thanks."

They drove an old road sign deep into the ground in both directions down the road from Planky Town. Then, much to Hog's disgust, Lucy had him behead two of the ghouls with his ax and she hung one from each sign. A general 'danger' symbol, painted with some watered down white paint, completed the picture.

"Wasteland art for you," she joked. Hog didn't quite manage a chuckle. He took the second, longer rotation of guard duty when they settled down. Lucy didn't protest over their cold dinner and spoke little afterward. Then Hog wrapped a blanket around himself and descended in a fitful sleep, haunted by Amata's voice calling out to him from the bottom of a churning, toxic river.

0 * TTL * 0

One of the Centaurs' heads and a good chunk of its body flash-melted under Sarah's laser shot. Her fist smashed into the other writhing head, pulping it in a shower of green ichor and acid.

Kodiak staggered towards her, sputtering curses over the coms. The titanium plate protecting his side was deformed and the Super Mutant charged in again at him, swinging its super sledge with abandon. Sarah squeezed three rapid shots in its chest: the red laser melted the thick slab of steel chest plate on the second and lay burning ruin on the body underneath. To its credit, the Mutant only stumbled to a knee. Then Kodiak's own sledge caved its skull in.

The radio set crackled to life. _"Alpha, this is Bravo. We've found the bombs storage. No casualties so far, but meeting heavy resistance. At least one of those smarties here. They're planning something. We need support."_

Sarah stomped in frustration on the twitching face of a Mutant with a squelch, flattening its hideous features. The body stopped moving _. "Copy that, Bravo. The storage must be recovered intact. Command center is clear, but they smashed every console. Brandis, send Echo in to support Tristan and Bravo, keep Foxtrot on perimeter duty. Alpha and Gamma are en route."_ She glanced at Kodiak. The big man was breathing hard through his filters, but he nodded resolutely.

Glade's voice picked up the tone. "You heard the Star Paladin. Let's move!"

They picked their way back through the bodies of Super Mutants and the shattered remains of old Pre-War robots. Sarah allowed an ounce of pride to enter her step: the Brotherhood's detractors say what they like, but little short of a Deathclaw Mother could stand up to a full squad of eight power-armored Knights and Paladins in close quarters.

Explosions, the _braka-braka_ of gunfire and the piercing hiss of laser fire resounded above and around them, the echoes bouncing around the inside of her helmet. There was a reason if she hated the damn thing, but that was neither here nor there. What mattered was that here was a game-changing arsenal waiting to be recovered inside and underneath Constantine, and the Super Mutants seemed to know that… and were playing asset-denial, of all things! Mutants! It was hard enough to reconcile the brutish orange ogres with the level of thoroughness displayed in destroying every scrap of information in the command center. Knight Artemis had barely managed to stop one of them from detonating a mini-nuke in the damn place.

And now they'd bunkered down in the bombs storage. Gallows' recon said there ought to be enough ordinance in there to arm Liberty Prime for another decade of full combat, should Rothchild's latest brain child actually produce results. Very explosive ordinance.

"On the double, Brothers!"

The only sound of complaint was Kodiak's teeth gritting in pain, but he shook his head at her. He was the Bear. She knew he could take it, and so did he.

" _Delta here."_ Gallows voice was smooth and neutral. _"There's movement around the emergency exit of the storage building. Super Mutants confirmed. They are… fleeing?"_

Sarah almost stumbled to a dead stop. _"Are you sure?"_ Super Mutants never fled. They just… didn't. Never had in over twenty years.

" _Positive, ma'am."_ If the Black Ops agent was offended, he didn't show it. Surprise bled out of his voice as fast as it'd seeped in moment before. _"One green smartie, four frankesteins. Green's carrying a briefcase."_

She frowned, then realization hit Sarah like a stone brick in the gut. She picked up the pace, heavy power-armored steps leaving dents in the metal steps. _"Pin them in place! If they leave the Fort, they're going to blow up the storage! Brandis, pull Foxtrot in as well. ETA?"_

The Midwesterner's voice was drawn. _"Echo is in position. Foxtrot, two minutes."_

" _Then push forward with Bravo! If that place goes up, we're all dead! ETA four minutes."_

Her suit's HUD blared a small alarm at her heartbeat, but Sarah ignored it. Alpha and Gamma teams thundered through the corridors behind her at breakneck pace, stepping over or walking through the bodies of the Mutants that had died to defend the command center, snuggled deep in the breast of Fort Constantine, several levels underground.

" _Three Franks capped, one bleeding,"_ Dusk chuckled over the comms. _"Looks like green brains is in a bit of a tight spot there. It's not going – FUCK! Colvin, you see it?"_

Colvin didn't answer for three long seconds. _"Negative. I think it used a Stealth-Boy."_

" _Are you fucking kidding me?"_ Glade shouted over the comms. _"It's one single mutie!"_

" _Gallows!"_

" _On it, ma'am."_

Sarah hit the ground floor running, the area too blasted apart from combat to tell what use it served before the War. Her teams were behind her: Glade, then a panting Kodiak, then Artemis and then she spotted the C4 charge stuck in a dark corner of the staircase's entrance.

"DOWN!"

The explosion deafened her to the cries of her men and tried to pick her suit off the ground. It almost managed, but her servos and weight kept her grounded. Titanium plates and hydraulics screeched like banshees against the blast wave, or so she thought: her ears were ringing like the Albatross' engines. Thick billows of dirt and dust blew into her lenses, blinding her.

"For Adam! For Ascension! Kill the puny humans!"

Bullets pinged off her armor in a cacophony of low-key ping-ping-ka-pongs that added to her vertigo. She whirled around on unsteady feet, her teams' voices faint over the comms, their shapes barely silhouettes in her armor's HUD. Then they grew sharper, more definite. One swung a sledge at her head.

' _Shit.'_

Sarah hit the ground, shouting orders she barely heard in the comms. The sledge whooshed over her head, then her legs' servos creaked and she barreled shoulder first into a mutant, a thick slab of meat that stepped back a couple but didn't go down. She unloaded her rifle point-blank into its groin. One shot, two, the smell of melted flesh wafted through her broken HEPA filter. Then the cell expired and a howling mutant kicked her square in the chest, managing what the explosion hadn't.

She smashed on the ground on her back, her mind dizzy. Her body wasn't. It remembered Gallows' conditioning that turned power armor into a second skin. She followed momentum and rolled back on her feet. Her laser pistol cleared the holster. Artemis screamed. Once, loud and piercing. Then he fell silent with a squelch and a thud.

She emptied half the cell into the approaching Mutant, flash-melting the helmet on its face and its beady eyes. A whir of cycling barrels and Glade barked, only to be drowned by the roar of his minigun. Bullets tore through the clouds in large swathes, disemboweling a centaur and ripping the legs off under another mutant in a shower of blood, cartilage and 5mm casing hissing and bouncing everywhere. Sarah coughed, trying to dislodge the dirt clogging her throat. She suppressed the fatal instinct screaming at her to take off her helmet to breathe better. At least she could still see. She regretted it a moment later.

A Super Mutant foot was grinding the last of Knight Artemis' skull into the floor, a gummy, full-toothed grin on the frankestein's face. Kodiak was fending off another from under a pile of rubble hiding – crushing – the lower half of his body. His sidearm clicked dry and he threw it at the advancing Mutant. The orange freak bashed the throw away with a swipe of its shotgun. Glade's minigun barked still, but she couldn't even see the Paladin. The Mutant levelled the shotgun at Kodiak's helmet.

Sarah didn't shout her oldest friend's name. She emptied the last of her pistol's cell into the back of the Super Mutant's knees. The shotgun roared, but it hit his pauldron instead of his head. Then she was running.

Super Mutants were impossibly tough. Their skin thick and leathery, the bones more similar to iron than calcium. None of that really mattered when Sarah's leaping haymaker impacted the side of Artemis' killer's head. Its neck snapped, gray matter trying to escape from behind its eyes and through its ears. It dropped stone dead, a stupefied expression on its ugly face that Sarah barely registered. Her hand found the Ripper on Artemis' belt, a weapon the man had treasured.

It whirred with rightful vengeance as Sarah plunged it into the skull of Greg's wannabe-killer. Then she stood still for a moment, panting hard, sweat drenching the inside of her suit.

" _\- Alpha! Sarah! This is Tristan! What the fuck is going on!?"_

Sarah blinked. Some more of the dirt flowed out or settled, revealing Glade stomping on the skulls of dying Super Mutants. Gunpowder, blood and cooked flesh filled her nostrils. Then her brain ground to a halt and rebooted. She knelt beside Kodiak. The man was unconscious, his breathing shallow. The shotgun shell hadn't pierced his armor, thankfully.

" _Alpha here. Mutants ambushed us in the lobby. Albatross, Vargas, I need immediate assistance and med-evac. One KIA, one critical wounded. Gamma's blocked under a cave-in. Bravo, Delta, Echo, sitrep!"_

" _Copy that, Alpha. Albatross inbound, weapons hot. ETA five minutes. Hang in there."_

She could hear the stomping of rushing armored boots over the comms. Paladin Brandis panted into the speaker. _"Bomb storage secured, two wounded. Bravo and Foxtrot converging, ETA three minutes."_

" _This is Gallows. I've found the tracks. In pursuit."_

" _Copy that."_

Sarah let go of Greg's hand and motioned at Glade, then grabbed the nearest piece of debris and carefully removed it from the top before throwing it away with a snap of servos. Glade joined her by the second piece, attacking the rubble with ferocity.

Sarah switched to her personal channel with Gallows.

" _Take that green fucker alive, Irving. I want answers."_

She received two short clicks in response, then Gallows cut off. Sarah grunted, grabbed another piece of debris and flung it away.

0 * TTL * 0

Lucy and Hog set out at the first light of dawn, Hog's pack weighed down by some of Lucy's supplies and ammo. Selfish purpose drove their steps in opposite directions up and down the Potomac, a drive each recognized and respected. There wasn't really anything to say but to bid each other good luck and hit the road.

The last stretch of the road was shorter, with no bridges or Talon patrols to worry about. The mountain range pressed on him from the west, the Potomac a lazy companion in the east. By the time the sun was up properly, Planky Town was an indistinct block lost in the background. That didn't stop Hog from stealing long glances over his shoulder and to his left, Lucy's warnings on the Deadlands' reputation stamped by hot irons in his brain.

When the Potomac started veering further east, Hog kept to the road or close by. Simms' had been thorough in marking sensitive locations on his outdated Pip-Boy maps. Not so much in warning him properly about the dangers he might meet on the way, but Hog didn't let the sense of apprehension stemming from recurrent nightmares and the testimony of the previous day's events ensnare him. The Regulators would be waiting at Point of Rocks, in numbers. What one person couldn't hope to achieve, a few dozen heavily armed vigilantes surely had a better shot at.

It still was hard to keep his feet walking in a straight line when he spotted the outlines of barges docked in a low meander of the river. Undefined silhouettes hurried on and off them, their clothing, ranking, and occupation indiscernible at such a distance. Hog felt his had wrap around the butt of his Desert Eagle anyway. He didn't need to look down at his Pip-Boy to recognize Paradise Falls' docks and the barges that shipped slaves up to the Crossing, the first step of deportation into the Pitt.

Hog glared at the silhouettes, his thoughts unsure. Any one of them could be Amata, Susie, Jonas, any other Vault Dweller or just some other poor fucker. Billy Creel had said some had been taken south to some place called Tenpenny Tower, other west to Fort Bannister, Talons Central. How many chances were there he was missing the target entirely?

' _ **You're not. Stop doubting yourself. Walk on, you're wasting daylight.'**_

He spotted the bridge and the town of Point of Rocks beyond shortly before midday. The sky above had grown a gray tinted white of spread over clouds, milder than the storm front that had forced him underground at Tysons. The landscape underneath was in no way more welcoming. Through the lenses of his binoculars, he saw a ghost town pressed against the foot of a ridge covered in sickly trees overturned and swatted away by the angry hand of God. He squinted, searching for signs of movement. Not a bush rolled across the main street.

He heard a foot shift the gravel behind him a heartbeat before the ka-klack of a chambered round.

"I seriously hope you're not a raider or Talon scout, kid," a jovial voice announced, poking him between his shoulder blades with a rifle. Hog put down his binoculars to find another rifle invading the corner of his vision. "I'd hate to find the challenge turned down another notch. Hands up, by the way."

Hog hesitated. The jovial voice noticed. "Ha ha. Don't do anything bullheaded. You ain't faster than a speeding bullet."

The other man chuckled, stepping fully into his view. His rifle was aimed low, lower than Hog's genitalia at least. The man wielding it was on the other side of his fifties under the cowboy hat askew on his head. When he smiled, his lips pulled around an old cut, revealing more tooth and gums that Hog was used to. It wasn't an altogether nice smile.

"Don't listen to Mace here. A name will be more'n enough."

"Hogarth Mitchell," the former Vaultie breathed out. "I'm with Sheriff Simms' group from Megaton." Scar-Lip's expression fell. The other, Mace, laughed, bass and full-bellied.

"You owe me fifty, Javier. Told you it was our man. Look at the watch." He stepped around Hog, his sunburnt face frozen in a cocky smile. "C'mon, kid. You got here faster than we expected, but Ms. Cruz's never the patient woman. She wants to meet you. Now be on your best behavior. We're pulling this jig in no small measure 'cause of you here."

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: Next chapter will wrap up Atom (might be the longest still, lots of things to cover), then usher in_ _ **Foundry**_ _, the third and last Arc of 'Book One' of TTL. No worries, I'm not gonna split up the story, just organizing it in Novel length books within the same story. Anyway, don't forget to leave a_ _ **review**_ _with your thoughts and critiques, especially if you're confused about the geography or some of the changes. Brutal Honesty is the rule of the game._


	14. Atom VII: The Hunt

**Atom VII) The Hunt**

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **The Desert Dancer, Aegon Blacksteel, PartyPat22, Alternative NonFiction, Jacob Sailer, Paladin Delta, Pro Assassin, Solivore**_ _and_ _ **Winding Warpath**_ _for their reviews, critiques and feedback._

 _Warning. This chapter contains a lot of Regulator balls-to-the-walls stunts: little self-preservation instinct kind of comes in the job description. Plus, Sonora is kind of nuts. The good, raider-massacring-and-take-their-fingers-off kind of nuts._

 ** _Edit 13/07/17: Thanks to PartyPat22 for the betaing._**

0 = TTL = 0

The Potomac's polluted waters glittered briefly in a rare ray of late afternoon sun that managed to punch through the cloud cover. The waters lapped against the rocky shore of a small cove, just a way off north from the long-sacked town of Point of Rocks. The dead and dry husk of a pre-War park expanded like a thick, leafless, grey-and-brown wall between the river and the rest of the wastes.

On the thin stretch of shore boxed in between, three men in worn wasteland garbs sat around a camp fire. A thick, rich smell of crustacean pulp rose from a cooking pan, where mirelurk eggs and meat were tended to by a scruffy man, his graying hair blown back to reveal a hard face carved by time and hardship.

"See, the trick's in blending the flavor," the escaped Pitt slave and information broker, Wernher, explained as he stirred the pot with a long ladle. "And keep the fucking flame up. It will do wonders for taste and rads both. Then spin slowly, or you'll just spoil the good stuff."

Hog grunted absently. He sat, elbows resting on his knees, eyes peeled on the bend downriver, ears trained to catch the first sputtering of a fusion engine. His face was hot from the shemagh still concealing most of his pale features, but it was nothing to the itchiness of the rough clothing Sonora Cruz had imposed on him and the other two on bait duty. His Pip-Boy, like most of his stuff, was stored away in the care of the rest of the Regulators.

"Cooked a lot of mirelurk up in the Pitt?" Mace, the brazen and cocky Regulator that first surprised Hog a few hours before, asked as he picked at his fingernails with a small knife. "My family breeds them in Hood City, right in the college swimming pool. Kinda lack that wildlife taste though, you know?"

Wernher clicked his tongue and grimaced. It pulled at old-looking scars on his face, especially deep around the black eyepatch covering his missing eye. "You don't want to eat anything that's even touched the Pitt's waters, spud. The rads and mad chemicals, they drive animals and people crazy. No, Ashur imports the food through the railways, from the forward bases in Ohio and Pennsylvania."

He shook his head again, then heaved a massive sigh. "Slaves only get the scraps of that, if even. No crops would grow in the Pitt. Have to fight for the less shitty stuff, most of the time." Hog felt the escaped slave's eyes probing him. "I learned to cook from before they took my family and I. Only dusted off the skill after I escaped."

Mace chuckled awkwardly. "Well, you did some proper dusting, man. This smells heavenly. You think it'll be done before our ride passes by?"

Hog tuned them out, one hand inches away from the Desert Eagle concealed under a piece of canvas covered with shoveled up dirt. His stomach lurched, but so did his imagination. Wernher's colorful descriptions of dread fueled the fear and apprehension birthed by the recurrent nightmares of Amata's voice calling out to him from the bottom of a river.

How would the Dwellers survive in such a dog-eat-dog environment that gave fuck-all about their peaceful upbringing and life-long rules set in stone? How would a young, bright woman pregnant with twins?

 _ **'That's up to her, pup. She's a strong woman. You can only do good on your end if you take it one step at the time and don't rush in headlong.'**_

Hog exhaled, his eyes roaming across the other shore. They stopped on the huge canine form sitting between two upturned and rotten river boats. Bright yellow eyes stared back at him, sending a chill down Hog's spine. He could feel those slit-thin pupils examining him, a judging image in his mind's eye, stark despite the distance.

Something rallied inside Hog then, hardening under the growing unease the dog's unblinking stare evoked. He hesitated, then pushed down the primal, churning fear that is born of the unknown refusing to reveal itself. He matched the animal's look, tried to at least. The beast – _"No,"_ his brain supplied in a whisper, _"something more."_ – didn't budge an inch.

"Hey, spud. Your stomach's rumbling's gonna tip them bastards off. Eat something."

Hog blinked, then whipped his head around, the spell holding him laying shattered. Wernher looked at him with an insufferable smirk, a can of mirelurk mystery mix extended in a peace offering. Hog took it and swallowed at the enticing smell, then stole a glance back to the other shore.

The dog was gone, as if it'd never been there.

"Didn't you -" Hog cut himself off and accepted a spoon with a shake of his head. "Never mind. Thanks."

He gobbled the meal down like a starved man, hot rad-crab innards dribbling from his fingers and chin, but his increasingly confused thoughts were soon blown away when a chirping whistle echoed from the treeline. A somber air fell over the trio. Hands were wiped off and concealed weapons checked briefly.

' _ **They're coming.'**_

The first barge was announced by the deafening rumble of an engine sputtering against the current long before the Paradise Falls flag crested the bend in the river. The hatted deathclaw head, sewn over a faded red cloth billowing in the wind, surmounted a rather rusty ship, flat and blocky and roughly cut. Its keel was browned with age, chipped and covered in algae and shells. Waist-high parapets ran along the ship's sides, topped by rows of shipping containers red with rust and the odd walking or leaning slaver.

Ahead of the barge and comparatively smaller, enough that it almost took a second look to notice it, sailed a tugboat. Tense tug ropes linked it with the front of the barge. As they approached, Hog realized the engine noise came from the smaller boat, actually doing most if not all the work against the current.

A lookout stood at the front of the tugboat's raised bow, a small bell hanging from a nearby pole and binoculars glued to their eyes - the distance made it rather difficult to tell their sex under the combat armor.

The bell's echoing toll and the ensuing cries and curses of criminals rallied to attention made such concerns trivial.

The first shots impacted the riverbank and kicked up dirt and sand just a distance away from the trio. A warning, like Sonora had said. Hog and the others had jumped on their feet the moment the boats came into view. After the shots, they froze mid-step, casting uncertain looks around. They played the role of the surprised wastelanders to the best of their skills.

On whether or not the crew members would buy the charade hinged everything else.

"Don't move another bone, you idiots!" One of the crewmen shouted over a megaphone as the tugboat slowed and dropped anchor. The Potomac narrowed in that stretch, causing the current to pick up in intensity. Hog dared only a single glance to Point of Rocks' Overlook, standing over seven hundred meters above the river level, where he hoped Sonora Cruz knew what kind of crazy she was about to pull, and pull it to effect. "You are worth shit only to the cannibals with a few holes adornin' your asses!"

A few rifles remained leveled at Hog, Wernher and Mace the Regulator as a lifeboat was hastily lowered and oars attacked the angry waters, directing the small craft to the shore.

The megaphone crackled again with static. "On your knees and hands on your head, boys! I hope you ain't got no weapons on you, I really do!"

Hog nudged his hidden gun with his knee as he pretended to comply. His eyes never left the ships and the guns, never daring to look up at the sky, or at Point of Rocks' Overlook again. Wernher had interlaced his fingers across the back of his neck, wrapping them around the handle of the knife strapped to his back.

It was Mace who broke the tense silence first, hands in the air and hiding a snicker in a cough.

"They don't even know they're already dead. I almost pity them."

The lifeboat's keel screeched against the northern bank of the Potomac. A half dozen heavily armed slavers were quick to jump out, splashing the last few feet to the shore and cussing at the irradiated water, rifles and guns held high above their heads.

Even Hog's rather novice eye saw the prime target they offered in those seconds: exposed, bogged down, with no escape but rushing forward.

Hog glanced up to the sky and caught the outline of something – several somethings - hanging low against the leaden sky and growing larger in a fast approach angled for the barge. Then a sharp whistle rent the air and Hog threw himself onto the ground.

Gunfire erupted from the dead treeline, scything through the slavers as the first stepped on the shore proper. Automatic fire and the crack of hunting rifles had four of the six crewmen fall dead or dying in the first salvo. More sniper shots picked off the slavers still manning the barge and the tugboat before the echo of the first salvo died. Over the din, Hog heard the splashing of more bodies hitting the water.

Hog's hand closed around his hidden gun. He brought it to bear, then put a couple shots into the furthest slaver. The first shot missed, but the second caught him in the small of his back as he tried to jump back into the lifeboat. Then Mace's shotgun opened up, and the man's head disappeared in so much crimson mist.

Precision fire continued to erupt from the treeline. A fireteam of Regulators broke from cover, sprinting down the shore to the lifeboat. Hog scampered after them, wincing and pushing harder as the slavers started returning fire from the ships. They shouted and cursed and the links of the anchor started rolling up again into the tugboat. A clock started ticking in Hog's head, as loud as the staccato of gunfire around him.

Mace jerked to a stop only a few steps away from the lifeboat and crumpled like a broken puppet in the shallow water, eyes vacant and blood pooling underneath around his chest. Another Regulator staggered and went down with a cry, clutching her side, blood seeping through her fingers. The suppressive fire from the treeline increased in tempo. Hog scooped up Mace's shotgun, then jumped into the lifeboat as it left the bank, sputtering out the radioactive river water kicked up by the half-dozen people doing the same. The boat rocked dangerously to one side, then the other. Somehow, Hog found himself sitting straight.

"To the oars!"

Hog grabbed at the two nearest handles, the knobby, dented things awkward in his grip. He hunched as bullets whizzed past; gritting his teeth, he pushed the paddles underneath the water and up again as he'd been briefly showed. Practice under fire was another thing entirely, yet the lifeboat rocked into motion and then jerked as the current hit it, almost toppling it over. Other Regulators grabbed at the oars, rowing furiously. Two flattened against the back of the boat and started shooting, the brakka- _brakka-brakka_ of their assault rifles adding to the hellish cacophony.

"Keep it steady! Just a little more!"

The slaver's shots impacted the water all around the boat, kicking up water that sprayed Hog straight in the face. More pinged off the reinforced hull or dug into the wood lining the inside. Hog hissed as splinters dug into his calf and more opened red gashes across his thigh, but his mutation kicked into action immediately after.

Maybe Moira's bonkers theory on rads influencing his healing wasn't so bonkers after all.

Then there was the screeching hiss of something approaching at high speed, followed by the _BANG!_ of a dozen explosions. The slaver's gunfire whittled to a staggered stop, replaced by howls of anger, pain, and confusion.

Hog looked up.

A dozen Regulators swept the ships from the sky in couples, holding one-handed on hang-gliders as they let loose on the crews with automatic weapons and stun grenades. At the tip of the rough double-triangle formation was Sonora Cruz herself, the one who'd come up with the idea for the crazy stunt in the first place.

Hog felt a twinge of awe and admiration for the woman as her fly-mate and she touched down and rolled on the roof of a shipping container. Dusters billowing, they cut down two blinded slavers with controlled bursts. The hang-glider continued on, veered off and disappeared beyond the far side of the barge. Another careened to one side, depositing the crew just before it crashed into the river. A third disappeared at high speed between the rows of shipping crates with a loud crash.

The stun grenades didn't incapacitate the slavers for long, but it was long enough. Hog and the Regulators started rowing with renewed vigor. As the flying Regulators swept through the barge, Hog and the others reached the rope ladder hanging on the side of the tugboat.

"We're almost through!" one of the Regulators urged them on. "Whatever happens, don't let them scuttle the systems or snap the ropes! Go go go!"

Hog was the second up, Desert Eagle in a fist, shotgun across his back. He threw himself behind the lifeboat's hoist, hitting the deck hard and firing blindly overhead as the helmsman sprayed the bridge with hot lead. Strangled shouts of pain and taunts filled the air as he straightened himself against the rocking of the boat, then a revolver joined the chorus. One, two detonations. The helmsman's gun fell silent with a wet gurgle.

One Regulator was already stepping over the cooling corpse and up to the helm when Hog found his footing, one arm out to keep his balance. The splinters dug deeper into his calf, eliciting a hiss of pain. The others were fanning out. Hog hesitated, then fell behind the nearest man in a duster, walking as steadily as he could. He was acknowledged with a stiff nod, then the older man led him to the back of the tugboat to secure the tug ropes on their end.

Two slavers were already hard at work there, tucked into cover only feet away from the tug lines, fire axes clutched tightly in hands shivering from combat drugs. The Regulators on the barge were suppressing them, but as they reloaded, one slaver took courage in both hands and sprung up, body coiled in a chopping swing.

The Regulator ahead of Hog, a man in his mid-thirties with a black cross tattooed on his cheek, mowed the bold slaver down with a full-auto burst from the hip, then turned to end the other as she jumped to her feet, axe swinging.

It'd have been too little, too late, but the Regulator's rifle jammed up just at that moment. Surprise turned to pain and the man fell crying and grasping at his leg, where the axe's blade cut deeply and got stuck in the bone. Hog stepped around the bleeding Regulator for a clean shot, but he only got one out. It missed narrowly as the slaver woman charge-tackled him on the deck with a snarl and started laying onto him with her bare hands.

Hog's forearms closed around his head in a protective cocoon, shaking from the violence but unbudging. The cussing woman, pink dreadlocks fanning out like whips, aimed for his ribs instead. He took the first punch gritting his teeth, then hammered the side of her head with the butt of the Desert Eagle. She staggered, eyes growing unfocused as blood dribbled down her temple.

Her next punch was slow and sluggish enough Hog had time to twist his head to the side, wrap his free hand around the back of her neck, grab the other behind her back, and twist his whole body around.

A moment later he was on top and her head slammed against the deck with a wet _thud_. Her hands clawed blindly at his arms and face. Hog punched down, flattening her nose with a crunch, then leveled the gun and fired point-blank, closing his eyes against nausea as thick, warm blood sprayed him on the face. The slaver didn't even beg for mercy.

He stood there for a moment, still and straddling the faceless corpse as it went through the last death shudders. A few last echoes, and the gunfire died for good. A whistle pierced the air moments later and some of the tension stiffening Hog's shoulders seeped away, leaving him sagging and drained.

' _We did it. The ships are ours. We can get into the Crossing.'_

' _ **This is only the beginning.'**_

"Someone... Man, over here..."

The wounded Regulator's plead for help dragged him back to reality, to the rocking of the boat beneath his feet and the thick blade buried in the man's thigh.

Vague, old lessons from days long gone spent trailing James in the Clinic, hanging on his every word and teaching in an effort to please the man, shouldered their way to the fore then. Hog rose to unsteady feet and wobbled to the man, mumbling reassuring nonsense. His tattered wasteland garb was torn into a long strip moments later, leaving his chest exposed to the crisp river air. Hog shivered. The Vault had always been cold, but in a different way. More sterile.

Hog pushed the vagrant thought away and coiled the cloth in a make-do tourniquet, then wrapped it around the man's leg, trying to budge the axe's handle as little as possible. The man hissed in pain.

"I can't take it out, or you'll bleed out faster." Hog offered him another strip of cloth, folded into a ball. "Bite down on this, it's going to hurt like a bitch." The Regulator gave the sweat-soaked thing a weak, disgusted look, then pulled a face and opened his mouth diligently at Hog's best imitation of the trademark doctor's look.

The moment the Regulator's teeth clamped down on the cloth, Hog made the knot and pulled with all the strength he had. The Regulator's muffled scream was short-lived as he passed out. In that time, the former Vault Dweller found the medical pouch at the man's belt and fished out the few syringes there. He almost smacked himself on the forehead.

' _Med-x. Should have checked before. Fool!'_

There was no way he was going to waste the only stimpak on the Regulator's leg before he got the axe head out. Otherwise, the leg would never heal right. On that note, his calf fired up in new, stinging pain as he climbed to his feet again, looking around for help.

Over the parapet, the lifeboat was rowing back from the shore, a fresh crew of Regulators boxed in the limited space. A few brown dusters swept the barge's perimeter, carrying bodies deeper into the ship, liberating them of their fingers, ammo, and armor. He recalled Sonora's orders to push as few as possible into the river: the slavers at Paradise Falls Docks would notice something was wrong if the crews of their ships suddenly floated dead downriver, carried by the current.

Hog waved at them, but he went unnoticed. Then there were footsteps on the deck, growing closer, and a Regulator –Javier, the old-man other half of Hog's welcoming party at Point of Rocks – drew to a stop, taking stock of the carnage.

This time, Hog didn't hesitate. "Grab hold of his leg, from both sides of the wound." Javier blinked, then holstered his revolver and knelt to the side of the unconscious Regulator. "Wider apart, don't touch the open wound. There, keep a firm grip. The circulation to the leg's blocked, but the blade needs to be out to make it heal properly. You got more stimpaks?"

"Two more, but -"

"Keep them handy." Hog took a deep breath. "Alright, on my three. One, two, three!"

The tattooed Regulator's body jerked back to consciousness with a strangled cry of pain as Hog unstuck the axe head from the man's femur. A jet of arterial blood spurted out, as if in retaliation. He threw the weapon away, then fumbled for a moment with the stimpak's capped cork, making sure it was untainted, and jammed it into his leg, just underneath the tourniquet.

The wound sputtered arterial blood weakly once, twice more, then the flesh around the wound seemed to bubble and grow, slowly extending over the wound. Hog breathed a sigh of relief, then stepped away and scrunched his nose as he remembered why James had all patients catheterized before injecting them with a stimpak. The little miracle syringes definitely weren't built with the comfort and pleasure of a patient's kidneys in mind. Nor their liver. For once, the former Vault Dweller was thankful for the shemagh cocooning his nose.

"He should be good," he said after a moment, and unwrapped the tourniquet. Now, if only he could find a pair of tweezers and take out the splinters from his calf… The gashes on his forearm had long since healed to pale scars, fast fading. He could really do without digging into his own flesh to take out some rotten wood.

Javier had other ideas. He grabbed Hog by the shoulder, shaking him slightly, then hauled him to his feet and pointed at the helm. "MacKinnon got one in the side. Go help her." He picked the unconscious Regulator in a fireman carry with a huff and a creak of old bones. "I'll carry Chester back. Go!"

Hog made to protest, say that he was no real doctor, no fake doctor either. Then he remembered Mace's dead, unseeing eyes and just how much the Regulators had risked and bet on him from day one. He swallowed his reply, nodded, and took off, grabbing the bloodied axe as he went.

Thankfully, the tugboat had a small first-aid box tucked in the helmsman cabin and a clean enough bed rather than the dirty, bloodied pavement for him to work on. MacKinnon wasn't the last, not even close. By the time Hog had finished digging and removed the bullet from her side, relying heavily on stimpaks to cover any major blunder due to his working on eyesight and grayed memories of anatomy books alone, word had spread among the Regulator ranks.

The sleeping quarters he had commandeered for the first operation were soon crowded with three more wounded Regulators.

He didn't know what he would have done if one of them had died because he barely knew what to do. None did, but Hog had little idea how well they would recuperate, if at all. By the time he finally brought the tweezers to bear on himself, biting down on a sleeve and with Wernher helpfully holding out a mirror for him to see what the hell he was doing, Hog had grown used to the rocking of the tugboat and nearly three dozen Regulators had been reduced to twenty-nine able bodied.

Mace and two of the hang-glider commandos had died, the latter when their transport crashed too fast into a shipping container, leaving them trapped and a ripe target for the vengeful slavers.

On their side, Paradise Falls was now short nearly two dozen scum.

He was thankful for the pain of his flesh tearing anew as he removed the sharp wood. It stopped him from thinking too much about when or how he had started to consider dead people – good, bad, people he knew or didn't, it didn't matter – mostly as numbers in an operation, where a positive result on his side meant it was all worth it.

Two dead and four wounded versus almost two dozen enemies dead? _'Positive. They knew what they were getting into, after all.'_

' _Save four hundred but leave a scant hundred much longer in the claws of Talon? Very positive.'_ Simple statistics had it there was a much bigger chance Amata, Jonas and the few people he really cared about were with the bigger group being sold for their value.

Hog twisted the tweezers and threw another bloodied splinter aside. Wernher remained silent, eyes narrow in curiosity as Hog felt the flesh of his calf mend around the small hole, reknitting together. The pain, however, lasted only a smidge, and then the questions and doubts returned.

He had long since broken the taboo that had once ruined his life in the Vault. He had broken it the day of his escape, and several more times ever since. There was no illusion left in him that he wouldn't break it again, that he could reach his goal and free Amata and the others without spilling any more blood. He hadn't hesitated with the slaver woman today. That illusion had died in the smoke of the metro tunnels in Tyson, when he executed the wounded raider trying to crawl away.

But now, three people had died to help him reach his goal. Three Regulators, brutal but good people with families, dreams, hopes, and fears. The slavers and the raiders, they had had it coming, but the Regulators… Was it worth it? Were the lives of the Dwellers-now-slaves more important than the Regulators', than everyone else's who may yet die in his mad quest?

' _ **Are their lives more important than yours?'**_

Math was eager to provide him with an answer, but Hog refused to hear it. He threw the last splinter away with a hiss, then glanced out of the nearest porthole, trying to ignore Wernher's growing fascination. There was still enough light outside to see the banks of the Potomac flowing by lazily. The deck under his feet shook with the engine's effort to overcome the current at any given moment.

Then Hog blinked and shook his head, but the huge dog he glimpsed on a stretch of barren shore didn't disappear. He kept following the boat, flickering between bushes, rocks and the wide open. He was the same one he'd seen gnawing ghouls at Planky Town and earlier, just before the ambush. Those two yellow eyes that flashed into his mind's eye left no doubt.

' _ **Better answer that question soon, pup. Doubt is going to get you killed and quickly where you're going.'**_

He must have fallen asleep then. The next thing he knew, the tugboat was honking. He blinked and Sonora Cruz stood above him, cowboy hat perched over her windblown face and a grim smirk tugging at her lips.

"Rise and shine. We're in sight of the Crossing." She dropped a combat armor chest piece on the floor. Dry blood specked the collar, black and metallic. The ceramic plates' clatter dispelled the last of the cobwebs between his ears, and Hog was fully awake. "Wear this, put on that scarf, and come upstairs. This was only a warm-up. The real fun's about to begin."

0 *TTL * 0

Sarah would have asked for nothing better than to chase the escaping Super Mutant – and that was still a concept she needed to wrap her head around, Mutants fleeing – with the Albatross. By the time Gamma had been unearthed from the cave in, mostly unscathed thanks to their Power Armor, however, the wounded's conditions in the blimp's med-bay had deteriorated enough that she had Captain Kells ferry them directly to the Citadel, top-speed.

After the blimp took off, she left Paladin Tristan in charge of Fort Constantine, to oversee the final sweep and start establishing a temporary FOB. A good half of the remaining Paladins and Knights, plus every scribe detached to the Albatross, remained under his command.

Two hours after Fort Constantine fell to the Brotherhood, Sarah led Brandis, Glade, Colvin and another half-dozen Brothers and Sisters on Gallows' and the Greenie's trail.

The delay would have been catastrophic and beyond recovery, if not for two factors on the chasers' side: Power Armor, capable of pushing a running man to speed unachievable by physical strength alone… and Irving Gallows himself. The former Circle of Steel operative kept his messages laconic, but the Mutant's Stealth Boy could only last so long, and there was no deleting the deep imprints of the freak's feet in the crumbling Maryland soil.

The black ops Brother confirmed his first, long-range engagement with the Greenie twenty-five minutes after Sarah and Alpha were ambushed inside Constantine, as the digging effort was still in full swing. The wounded Greenie still proved elusive after that, trying to lose Gallows in craters and through the ruins of long-abandoned towns, but Sarah knew Gallows wouldn't – couldn't - let go of the quarry once it was in his sights.

She wasn't disappointed.

Twice more, as Sarah re-organized her forces and the Albatross started its brief journey south, Gallows confirmed sighting and wounding the Super Mutant. Each time, the Star Paladin awaited the second half of the message, a confirmation of the Mutant being subdued and the precious-looking briefcase, whatever its contents, recovered.

Each time, the confirmation failed to come through and Gallows signaled he'd continue his pursuit, marking his position through compass coordinates and an infra-red laser Colvin could follow through night-vision binoculars.

The hours passed quickly as the Power Armored soldiers ate mile after mile of the Maryland wastes, the ground shaking under the synchronized running steps of Sarah's platoon. She felt watched as they passed through a few of the ruins, wary eyes hidden behind boarded windows or into dark corners, made even more so by the advancing hour and the overcast sky. Yet, no shot was fired. Nobody dared challenge their right of way.

She finally called the halt at sunset at Gallows' last pinpointed position and allowed her troops a five-minute stop on a large rock outcrop overlooking the confluence of the Potomac with the Shenandoah River. A small town sat in a valley between the two rivers below, boxed in between the water and the arid hills to the west.

Unlike the many ruins she'd passed in the afternoon, this one was clearly inhabited and no cost had been spared in fortifying it: gun emplacements reinforced thick walls made of scrap and welded metal, surmounted by coils of barbed wire cordoning off the town from the wastes beyond. A rather extensive pier, complete with cranes for heavy cargos, hugged the Potomac's side of the town. Further off, beyond the half-crumbled bell tower of a brick church, Sarah's sharp eyes spotted a railway station and several armed figures unloading crates from a convoy of carts bound to the back of a locomotive.

' _Working trains? Here, a stone's throw away from the Deadlands?'_

Soon, several dozen lights were bathing the town like daylight, from floodlights sweeping both sides of the walls to – to Sarah's continued amazement – working streetlights lining many rubble-free streets, revealing another layer of fortifications and gun nests around the church.

Then her eyes fell on the access gate dominating the only bridge leading into town. Sarah's amazement soured, turning into disgust and a mild sense of unease. A burnt, bullet-riddled sign made of mismatched shop insignia and steel letters was welded together to spell The Crossing.

And just above it, painted over a splash of red, was the hatted deathclaw head of Paradise Falls' slavers.

" _Gallows here."_

Sarah almost glanced around, slightly spooked and embarrassed at being wrenched away from her sightseeing. With their helmets' floodlights switched off and darkness falling fast, there was little spotting her team's power-armored silhouettes from below against the leaden sky. Still, such zoning off was inadmissible, especially in the middle of a war-op. Sarah refrained from pushing the command that'd inject her armor's stash worth of stimulants into her blood. She took a deep, steadying breath instead and opened her eyes again with renewed focus.

" _Lyons here. Come forward, Gallows."_

" _The Greenie is in the town."_

Sarah was glad the conversation was happening on their private channel. Otherwise, the entire team would have heard her sputtering.

" _What? Just… was it taken prisoner?"_

Tap-tap. Negative answer. _"It showed the slavers a pass. Seems like they knew it."_

Gallows' tone didn't even waver saying such nonsense. Two times in the same day would be too much to ask for from the unflappable man, even when the world seemed to have done a one-hundred-eighty-flip on its fucking head.

" _Holy… alright. You're inside?"_ A single tap answered her in the affirmative. _"Good. You still got eyes on it?"_

Tap-tap. _"They brought it to the church. It's where they keep the slaves."_ Sarah let out a harsh breath. If Gallows heard her, he didn't make a show of it _. "Difficult entry vectors. It seems they've got a barge approaching from downriver too. Here to pick up some provisions from the Pitt._ _Ammo, guns, armor. Big cargo_ "

' _Fuck.'_ Sarah stopped herself from pinching the bridge of her nose. She would have just looked silly banging her gauntlet against her face plate. She looked at her men over her shoulder instead, then down the rocky hillside, where rain, rads and time had dug a steep but manageable path down to the front entry bridge spanning between each bank of the Potomac. Further to the left, just rounding the bend in the river before the last stretch up to The Crossing, she spotted the intermittent lights of some boat, signaling. One of the floodlights on the piers was replying in kind.

" _You got explosives on you?"_

Tap.

" _Then set up a diversion at the main gate. We're coming in hot."_

Gallows gave the affirmative and Sarah's HUD flickered with a small timer, five minutes and counting down.

" _Alright. Platoon, we're moving in."_ Her men were on their feet in moments, helmet seals hissing closed. East-Coaster and Midwesterner alike stood at attention, weapons ready, one uniform aura of grim determination and weariness hanging over them. No better way to forge bonds than through the gauntlet of pitched, bloody combat.

" _This is going to be touch and go, so I need you hot, locked and ready to rock. Paradise Falls' slavers have reached a new low: our target is apparently a client of theirs and has been for a while."_ It certainly explained where the hell the Super Mutants kept getting a steady supply of test subjects to dip in whatever ugly strain - or strains - of FEV had cropped up on the East Coast. Several of her men reached the same conclusion at the same time. The silence strained, but held under her whipping orders.

" _This is the plan. Gallows is setting up a little present by the main gate. Once that's down, we bum rush the bridge, kill anything and anyone that shoots back at us, extract the Greenie and the package he carries, then high-tail it out of there. Don't save up on ordinance: the more damage we do, the better, but speed is of the essence. The slavers have reinforcements rolling in from the river as we speak and we don't want to be stalled in a grinding crossfire during the extraction. Clear?"_ Sarah licked her lips, her human guilt warring with the soldier mission-oriented mentality without a clear victor.

She saw Brandis' shoulder pauldrons stiffen in realization, the man straightening into his armor. The Paladin had understood what she was about to say. Whether he agreed or not, she couldn't know. Couldn't care. Not right then.

" _Our target is in the church. So are the prisoners. I'm going to be adamant here: Greenie and the package take top priority. We need information, or next time a lot more Brothers are going back home in a coffin. Take it alive, if possible."_ Sarah forced steel in her voice, the same steel she remembered in her father's when he wrote off all communities north of the Potomac or every time he ordered a MIA added to the KIA after the mandatory three days of fruitless searching.

" _If we can free and arm the prisoners while we're there, good, but we don't have the numbers to escort them out and all the way up to Hood City or down to Megaton. With the Albatross here, it'd be different, but our ride won't be here for a few hours yet at best, and we don't have that long. Let's go."_

0 * TTL * 0

A harsh river breeze blew in Hog's face and glued the clothes under the pilfered armor to his skin as he stood on the rolling deck of the tugboat, playing the slaver sentry. Still, his palms were sweaty around the stock of the Type 93 assault rifle. He'd given Mace's shotgun back to Sonora upon waking up. He didn't know if the Regulators buried their own with their weapons – he'd read something about that kind of funeral rites being common in warrior cults, back in the Vault's library – but anyway, he didn't want it, or know particularly well how to use it.

The Crossing, once known, before the bombs, as the town of Harpers Ferry, approached steadily, a glowing milestone in the quickly thickening darkness. The whole thing was lit up like a Christmas tree. Floodlights swept the river banks and the waters in circular motions, searching for Mirelurk nests or even worse stuff that sometimes found its way in the river. Hog didn't ask what and the storyteller didn't go into further detail, but he kept a wary, blinking eye to the waters nonetheless.

Sonora Cruz stood by the signaling light at the prow of the ship, supplying the operator with the code-sequence tortured out of one of the surviving slavers. Hog didn't see the act, but he certainly heard it: it wasn't as bad as Ryan Briggs' wails bouncing off the metro station walls at Tysons, but the river had a strange way to carry and morph sound.

The sequence came to an end. Sonora was apparently satisfied with the answer signaled back from the Crossing, because she turned and regarded the few fake guards standing on the deck, Hog among them.

"Keep a level head. The moment we're clear of the harbor, put your dusters on. I don't want friendly fire to fuck this up."

And with that, she disappeared below deck, where the 'universal key', as she called it, was getting one last fine-tuning.

Night descended as the tugship and the barge it dragged covered the last stretch of the river. The river brought faint sounds of human presence from the slavers' den to Hog's ears, making his treacherous, undecided mind picture scenes of everyday life likely taking place among the people garrisoning the town there and then. Dining, playing cards, going for a stroll. Planning their future and families, perhaps.

They lost much of their punch and inherent guilt when Hog added collars and Vault suits to the picture. No, these people were scum. The scum of the world, like Simms said. The former Vault Dweller checked the mag of his assault rifle, then chambered the first round.

If he wanted to save his people, he was going to have bad things happen to worse people.

As to stress and underline his resolve, the town's main gate went up in a roaring explosion of green, churning energy. The night lit up like midday for a scant few seconds, bathing a dozen behemoths of steel charging across the access bridge. They discharged lances of burning red laser at the demolished defenses, mowing down the defenders before they could rally, and then they were through.

Hog blinked. No, not behemoths. He had seen similar silhouettes in black-and-white Anchorage propaganda broadcasts in history class.

' _That's Power Armor!'_

Then a shrill siren rent through the night. Wincing, Hog almost missed Sonora Cruz's order as she popped her head out from below deck.

"Kelly, Goldstein, cut off the barge. Helmsman, forward, top-speed! Ram into the pier, fuck subtlety at this point! We've got the ever-fucking Brotherhood of Steel tearing shit up out there!"

Hog blanched. _'Has she lost her mind?!'_

"The Brotherhood? This far north?" the helmsman, Tavish, shouted back _. 'Didn't he just hear what she said about_ _ramming_ _?!'_ "How in fuck?!"

"Hell if I know. Not gonna look a gift brahmin in the mouth. Now do it!"

"Damnit!" the helmsman cursed. "Ok everyone, foot's on the gas!"

The tugboat lurched forward and Hog's balance, already a tattered and shaky thing, gave up on him. He staggered back, hand flailing and finding the parapet as the tugboat attacked the Potomac with renewed vigor. Twin tense snaps echoed in quick succession and the tugboat jerked ahead again, faster this time, its engine roaring over the growing gunfight and explosions in the distance. Hog hung on for dear life, then slowly found his feet again and checked his gun. The Crossing's pier was closing in to meet them, much faster than Hog would have expected.

In less than a minute, the tugboat's bow was less than a stone's throw's away from its destination. Hog barely caught a peek of arms waving frantically from the wooden pier, trying to urge them to slow down over the swelling cacophony.

The helmsman managed to make himself heard, instead.

"Brace for impact!"

The tugboat's prow crashed into the piers with a screeching roar of bending metal and shattering wood. Hog braced, but he was thrown forward anyway, feeling his lungs and heart pushing against his ribcage. He crashed into another Regulator already on the ground as the ship slowed and the engine sputtered, causing more echoing screeches as the boat tried vainly to push forward into the bank itself.

"Come on! On your feet! Are you Regulators, or what?! This ball's just getting started!"

Hog shook his head, wincing at a dozen different pains – yet already fading – and blinked. Sonora Cruz stood feet wide apart on the deck, while her men were trying to pick themselves up from the floor or extricate themselves from heaps of tangled limbs. She stared ahead, cowboy hat glued to her scalp, eyes afire in the glow of the floodlights converging on the crash.

Braced on her shoulder was a rocket launcher, long and unapologetic. The Regulator leader dropped on one knee, looked into the side-mounted sight, and grinned. On the walls, sentinels still reeling from the new attack that just crashed on their doorstep scrambled for the unmanned machine guns.

"Say hello to my little friend!"

Fire and super-hot smoke belched from the back of the launcher for a moment, then the rocket screamed out of the launching tube and impacted the fortifications in the span of two heartbeats.

Hog threw himself on the deck again, shielding his head with his arms as the world exploded into a deafening KRA-BOOM.

Ears still ringing, a hand grabbed Hog under the armpit and pulled him up. Black smoke, already thinning, engulfed the blast site. Hog glanced up at Javier, his team leader, then grunted and pulled himself on his feet.

Sonora Cruz and her fire team were already vaulting over the warped prow, guns blazing as they executed the slavers still recovering from the boat's crash-landing.

"Move by teams and keep your wits about you. There can be a gun behind every window and corner! Goldstein, your team will secure our exit. Everyone else, Wernher says the slaves are in the church! That's our target. To the church!"

0 * TTL * 0

The tumbledown bell tower dominated the skyline over the roofs of The Crossing as the Brotherhood carved a bloody path of ashes and death through the heart of Eulogy Jones' prized holding.

Hours before, Sarah had borrowed some extra firepower from the Albatross' armory to shore up Kodiak's absence from the team. The H&K L30 was an older model of gatling laser still beloved by the Midwesterners, though they'd adapted it to use a battery pack as a power source. Long and lean, it barely rattled in Sarah's powered fists, its weight no more than a hindrance for her suit.

Torrents of laser fire scoured the slavers' entrenched position on the second floor of an old barber shop, flash-melting wood, sandbags, flesh to ashes and leaving only metal glowing an angry red-hot. A rocket screamed out of a launcher further down the column, blowing up a group of three slavers trying to set up an LMG in a side alley for a flanking sweep. The explosion turned them to bloody paste, then brought half the adjacent house down on them, burying the remains for good.

Sarah advanced fast, spearheading the charge. Bullets ricocheted over the titanium plates of her T-51b in a cacophony of _ping-pang-ping_ , leaving scratches and small pits for the larger calibers. She gritted her teeth as one left a thin graze through the joint at her hip, piercing the kinetic-absorptive undersuit, but she pushed forward, not daring to switch out back in the column. Half her platoon had to do with the frailer T-45d model, which wouldn't hold as well.

Beside her, Glade opened up on a hastily erected barricade across the main avenue, sending the slavers to the ground, dead, dying or scurrying for cover. She joined him, but her eyes were firmly set on the target ahead, to the church, where the slaver leader was fortifying their position, sending out fodder to delay them. Another bullet pinged off her helmet, making her wince.

" _Tell me you're in."_

Gallows didn't disappoint. _"I am. It's worse than we thought."_

Before she could answer or inquire, the scream of a rocket sounded from the west.

" _Scatter!"_

The rocket detonated a moment later, the explosion distant and muffled by the houses to a low rumble. The Brotherhood soldiers, still in the process of running for cover, stopped dead and returned fire instead. The last of the street barricade went up in a flash of laser fire, and so did the men cowering behind it.

" _What was that?"_ Brandis asked over the comms. She'd left him with two others to hold the gate and main retreat route open.

" _No idea. Colvin?"_

The sniper's mic scratched for a moment. _"I don't have a clean line of sight, but it came from the docks, ma'am. Wall has been blown open over there,"_ he relayed evenly, then his breath caught. _"Wait. My Lord – bless their souls, it's the Regulators, ma'am. They're swarming from the pier, twenty, no, almost thirty strong."_

Sarah blinked, then armed a frag grenade and tossed it through a broken window as she plowed through a scorched line of sandbags.

' _Some good news, at last.'_ _"Brandis, you heard Colvin. Relay the information to the Citadel through the Albatross. Brotherhood, forward! We got friendlies incoming! Don't shoot the dusters!"_

Sarah plowed on, then stepped sharply through the cover of an old porch as the twin M60s on the church's steps and bell tower opened up on her team in overlapping lanes of fire. Sheets of 7.62mms impacted her power armor and this time, she felt every one of them, but the titanium alloy held as she and Glade layed down cover fire for the rest of the team to pick an approach.

Through the deluge of lasers and bullets, Sarah saw the church's doors lean open. Collared figures in torn blue jumpsuits were shoved out and into cover, live weapons in their hands. The gestures of the slavers around them, pointed fingers and jerking waves all aimed in the Brotherhood's direction, as well as the frightened and confused faces of the Vaulties, told all the story that needed to be told.

Sarah's stomach churned with disgust.

" _Hold your fire! Civvies on the field! Hold your fire!"_

Sarah and Glade's gatling barrels slowed their whirring, the barrels red and smoldering hot. The slavers didn't, but many ducked into cover as another portion of the bell tower collapsed, the old bricks and stone eaten away by the super-hot lasers.

" _Reposition and find cover. Secure a perimeter around the church. Glade, prepare to flank Maryland, I'll go Oregon. Colvin, find the leader and blow their head off!"_

" _Copy that, ma'am."_ The report of a sniper rifle echoed not a moment later. A man in sand-colored combat armor and a handlebar mustachio took one straight to the chest and went down. In its wake, the staccato of gunfire grew in span and scope, closing in and punctuated by grenade detonations, taunts and cries.

On the church's steps, behind the harried lines of sandbags and impromptu cover, slavers turned around to face a new front, urging their victims to do the same by shouting and waving detonators. Colvin and a few other, unseen sharpshooters put their grams of lead into said waving bastards, turning the intimidation devices into Don't-Touch hot potatoes in a matter of moments.

She saw the opening in the wavering slavers' ranks, shored up by more slaves by the minute that barely knew how to fire, or had the will to. Blank looks of shock and weapons clutched close to their chest or thrown to the ground in fear were the most common occurrence. Sarah dropped the L30, drawing her trusty AER rifle instead.

" _Gallows. Now would be the perfect time for a distraction."_

The black ops operative didn't answer.

" _Gallows, this is Lyons. Over."_

No answer. No tapping. Nothing.

' _What the –'_ If Gallows, of all people… Sarah didn't let that thought form completely. From the alleys to the right, Regulator strike teams advanced into the church's square, flitting between cover and drawing fire from the slavers. Further off, where the barricades were weaker, around the back of the church, another team charged out in the open in the wake of more suppressive fire, ducking low as return fire kicked up dirt and tarmac dust all around them.

There were four of them, all in their dusters save one donning a sleeveless leather coat. Another had a scarf wrapped loosely around most of his face. They reached the outer wall unscathed as Sarah and a few others added their guns to suppress any slaver shooting at them. Once underneath a once-colored glass, now shattered, two cupped and linked their hands, propping up Scarf-Face first. He bashed the jagged teeth of glass off the frame with the butt of his rifle, then vaulted in.

" _Gallows, if you hear me, you got help incoming from the back. Regulators. We're moving in from the front. Hold on."_

Sarah switched frequencies and chambered a new microfusion cell. The slavers' fire was abating, the Regulators advancing up to the outer line of sandbags. A few of the slaves, the odd wastelander among them and even a few determined Vaulties, were turning on the remaining Paradise Falls taskmasters. Five of them jumped the two gunners manning the last M60, dog-piling them in a wild melee.

" _Brothers, Gallows is in trouble! Expect heavy resistance in the church! Advance!"_

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Hog braced himself for the fall and hit the church's floor in a tumble, blinking owlishly at the sudden drop in the ambient light. The shemagh brushed against his cheek and blinded him for a moment as it fell from his face. He didn't pick it up.

The variegated clash of battle didn't abate. It shifted and changed, but also picked up in intensity, echoing off the close confines.

Scaffolding lined the walls, extra rafters propping up the ceiling. He was at the back of the church, near the altar, but all partitions had been long since removed or destroyed. So had every kneeling-stool. Only the altar, a chipped thing of blood-stained marble, remained.

All around it were cages of welded iron and scrap. A few were gaping open, empty. He knew their occupants were outside, forced to fight for their oppressors' behalf. He hadn't seen them during his flanking maneuver, but he knew, and his blood boiled for it. Others were still filled to the brim with people, men and women and even a few children. The dirty blue of Vault suits was everywhere.

' _I've found them.'_

"Hogarth! Watch out!"

Hog didn't question that voice. Years in the gym, training first under and then sparring with that voice's owner, had conditioned his body to react to Herman Gomez's slightest warning. Hog threw himself forward blindly, coming back to his feet in a half-roll, and froze.

' _What. The. Fuck. Is. That?!'_

A meaty orange fist the size of his head answered that question with an angry growl. Hog kicked back on the pavement, throwing himself in a back roll. The fist, and the impossibly muscled body behind it, hit the floor and sent granite shards flying everywhere, tearing through Hog's duster. The combat armor underneath deviated them, but Hog didn't shoot back, the Desert Eagle held in a limp grasp.

The thing was tall, a disgusting greenish orange. Beady eyes glared at Hog, equal parts hunger, anger, and confusion. Its head – he wanted to call the thing a He, but he couldn't – was small, perched atop a corded neck wiry with muscle and a large, imposing frame. Whose only goal, it seemed, was to kill him.

" _Hooogarth!"_ The thing howled, spit flying everywhere. "I'll kill you! Eat you! Smash and rip and tear you apart!"

' _\- What?!'_

The thing advanced in ponderous strides, but Hog was frozen, riveted to the floor, his limbs refusing to move even as survival instinct slapped his brain and fear and horror warred for supremacy. People were shouting. Gomez was shouting, fists closed around the bars of his cage and rattling, but it was all a loud, buzzing ring in his ears.

Its fist cocked back, the orange giant _that somehow knew his name and hated his guts_ staggered to a stop. Hog's brain registered the staccato of a rifle only belatedly. Wernher slid off the broken window, rifle muzzle smoking, changing mags on the fly. Thick globs of orange blood hit the floor at the giant's feet, running down his neck and shoulders, drenching torn strips of blue cloth hanging from its arms and around its hips.

Hog blinked. Blue cloth. Blue lined with yellow. Blue as in Vault Blue. The exact shade.

' _No. Impossible.'_

The giant's eyes grew focused again just as Hog's legs shook off the paralysis. He heard a loud crash break over the din of fighting all around him, fighting he had yet to acknowledge. Flesh was shredded by the whirring of a chainsaw. Then he was flying, pain blossoming like fire flowers all over his chest and back.

0 * TTL * 0

Sarah shot the last slaver standing between her and the doors straight in the face, flash-melting his flesh and the brain underneath. Behind her, her men were systematically dismantling the slavers' last line of defense and disarming those prisoners too panicked to know when to stop shooting. She pushed the smoking corpse aside and kicked the doors in with a massive, servo-powered metal boot.

She saw Gallows first, helmetless and panting. He wove through the grabs and fists of two orange freaks in ripped blue clothes, wielding only his ripper, his other weapons nowhere to be seen.

She leveled her AER as Gallows' ripper sunk in the belly of a frankestein and put three rapid shots in the back of the other one. Then a brown blur filled her vision and impacted the front of her armor as she turned around.

Sarah wobbled and she heard the crude snap of bones on impact, but her armor kept her standing and unharmed. The brown blur turned out to be a young man, a Regulator, deadly pale and eyes rolled in his sockets. He gurgled wetly before sliding to her feet in a heap.

She grabbed him, eliciting another weak hiss of pain. At a single look, she knew he didn't have long to live. His combat armor had absorbed much of the damage and impact, but the ceramic chest plate was caved in, and the young man was coughing up blood. She didn't want to imagine the state of his internal organs after a direct blow like that, but memory supplied anyway. No stimpak could heal that kind of damage.

She leaned him against the closest wall, then whipped around as the _brakka-brakka_ of an assault rifle drowned out the cries of prisoners, even as more clutched at their ears in a panic. The older man with an eyepatch she recognized from the Regulator's team was gunning down a kneeling Super Mutant, a grim expression on his face as the rifle recoiled against his shoulder.

Sarah strode over to the freak she'd wounded, stomped down on its spine and finished it by discharging two shots point-blank into its skull as it fell on its elbows. On her right, Gallows straddled the last freak and drove the ripper into the side of its skull with a shredding squelch. On his face, worn and weathered but still free of too many wrinkles, there was no trace of hate or emotion whatsoever. Only unwavering focus.

' _None of these is Greenie. Where the fuck has it gone?'_

"Open this cage, for God's sake!" one of the prisoners was shouting himself hoarse, fists balled around the unyielding bars. "He's one of us! Open up! We've got a doctor here!"

More of her men were now swarming the church. Sarah motioned Glade and a Knight with a Super Sledge towards the cages, her silent order acknowledged with brisk nods even as Glade walked with a limp.

" _Everyone else, fan out. Find Greenie. Glade, one of the Vaulties is a doctor. Have him take a look at you. Someone go and find the Regulators' leader as well: they'll have wounded that need treating, and they can handle the Vaulties better than us. Brandis?"_

" _Way's clear, Star Paladin. The Albatross' ETA is two hours."_

The dying Regulator coughed and the man with the eyepatch rushed past Sarah in long strides. The young gunslinger was trying to speak, but she couldn't pick up what. Closing her eyes and steeling herself, Sarah ignored the prisoners for a moment and knelt beside one of the dead Super Mutants.

Up close, the blue tatters on the freaks' monstrous forms were bright and streaked with yellow here and there, despite the filth and blood staining it. Behind her helmet, the Star Paladin frowned. Gallows live voice – his helmet was probably somewhere under the rubble - confirmed her worst, unvoiced fears.

"FEV syringes," he said as he slowly worked the ripper out of the Mutant's skull. "They were in that briefcase. It injected the stuff right into their bodies, and they turned in minutes. Had already turned more than I realized." With a nudge of his head, he pointed at a collapsed section of the scaffolding. The body of an orange Mutant was visible lying face down, a metal tube protruding from the back of its neck.

"Where is it?"

A screech of warped metal, then the clang of a hammerhead, and the first two cages were open. Vaulties stumbled forward, then a young, rat-faced woman no older than Sarah was shouldered her way past the first throng and stumbled down on her knees beside the Mutant the one-eyed wastelander had executed.

"Tom! Tom! Oh my God, no, please!" Her cries were confused, intermixed with broken sobbing. She didn't dare touch the thing her Tom had become, her hands hovering for a moment before they went to her face, smothering a wail. "What did they do to you?!"

Sarah closed her eyes again, removed her helmet and shook her head wearily. Loose strands of grimy, sweaty hair hit her face. All the accumulated stress and weariness crashed down on her at that moment, wrapped around a boulder core of utter failure. More heavy steps sounded behind her, almost hesitant to intrude upon such a scene. She didn't doubt there would be more, once all the prisoners were gathered.

Gallows, of course, remained completely unperturbed. Sarah didn't know whether to pity or envy him.

"It had another Stealth Boy on it. Probably – SARAH!"

The oversized hand was already closed around her neck. She grasped at it, clawing with armored fingers, but the flesh was tougher than hide, the grip unbudging. It picked her up as if she weighed nothing, armor and all. A fetid breath made her want to vomit, but she was too busy trying not to choke from the hand squeezing her neck.

A small, pinprick sensation teased the skin atop her jugular, trailing loose circles on her neck. A dozen rifles and assorted weaponry were pointed at her, but Sarah's vision was filling with stars already, her feet kicking the air without finding purchase or scoring a solid hit.

"It's Gabriel, Star Paladin," a growling but clear voice hissed in her ear. Then Greenie bellowed, deafening Sarah. "Gabriel, not 'it', or 'freak'! Once, I was a man, too. Just like them. Then I became Ascended, a gift you relics are too myopic to understand."

"Put. Her. Down," Gallows hissed. His knees were bent, his body coiled to lunge, almost shaking with impotency.

"Down, you fucking freak!" Glade bellowed, minigun whirring up. "Use that syringe, and I'll tear your ass to fucking pieces!"

Sarah's eyes bulged, despite the darkness swiftly descending like a veil. She kicked again, her blows fueled by panic and fear, no, pure, unbridled terror coursing through her veins. To no avail. The needle's circles became sharper, smaller.

' _No! No! No! Not like this! Notlikethis!'_

She elbowed the thing, Gabriel, in the chest. It chuckled, shaking her for good measure. For a moment, Sarah hoped her neck would snap.

"Put down that toy. Your assassin already tried, Paladin. Tell them, Gallows. You shot me three times this afternoon, and yet, here I stand, not a scratch on me." His voice lowered to a whisper. The words bounced inside Sarah's skull like rubber cannonballs.

"And soon, Star Paladin, you'll know what that feels like. To heal from all kinds of damage. Invincibility. I have a feeling you'll be a resounding success, not like the others. A full Ascended."

She felt, more than saw, the needle touching her skin again. It broke the surface, impossibly slow.

 _CHUK!_

Gabriel howled, his grip slackened, and Sarah was free. She plunged to the ground on her knees and crawled away, away from it, away from turning into a monster, away to a weapon.

Glade bellowed, orders forgotten. "OPEN FIRE!"

Lasers and bullets alike ignited the air with streaks of death. They impacted the Greenie from all directions, eating through its armor into the flesh and bones underneath. Sarah flipped onto her belly. Her hands found the sidearm she'd forgotten all about in her panic.

Gabriel had twisted around, trying and making for the exit. A fire axe was dislodged from its shoulder by a shot, leaving behind a gaping wound. Gabriel stumbled, howling in pain. Beyond the doorsill, the approaching Regulators threw themselves out of the firing lane, wary of stray shots. Screams matched the staccato of the guns, be it Gabriel's, the prisoners' or, as Sarah realized as she squeezed the trigger on an empty e-cell, her own.

Belatedly, she remembered she needed, even wanted, the thing alive.

"HOLD!"

The barrage whittled down, then ceased. Gabriel was a smoking, broken ruin on the floor, its legs burned to the hip, veritable holes burned into its blackened torso. And yet, to Sarah's horror, Gabriel tried to crawl to the door, pulling on its single arm, charred pieces of armor falling off with each shift and movement.

"I – I will –" Gabriel croaked, the very sound of its voice painful, " – heal. I'm – Ascended. Adam showed –"

Sarah swallowed, trying to find her voice. She needed to give the order, have Gabriel subdued and prepped for extraction. The Scribes needed to examine the thing's resilience in depth, find out exactly just what was going on with this new type of Super Mutant.

Then she caught sight of movement, and her mind boggled.

The dying Regulator stomped over Gabriel's searching hand, grinding his sole to the snap of tendons, fire-axe in a death grip. He was pale, deathly so, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. His chest was bare of armor, the shirt underneath ripped open to reveal an enormous bruise and a tender ribcage rippling with every short breath. And yet, he walked. Not only that. The dark, angry purple bruise on his chest shifted and seemed to be receding before her very eyes, leaving behind pale skin and solid bone underneath.

"Hogarth?" A dark skinned man in his forties asked, touching his broken spectacles as if it was all a hallucination. "You're-? But how – you were - "

"Hey Jonas," the young man, Hogarth, wheezed, then winced in pain, touching his ribs. His healing ribs. Healing as the seconds passed. Sarah's brain echoed Jonas' disbelief. Heaped upon the rest of the day's mind-boggling news, it left her reeling, unable to process the conflicting information. "It's… a long story. I'll be there in a moment. Better deal with this fucker before it gets back on its feet."

The axe rose, its head trembling slightly for a moment. Sarah found her voice again.

"Don't!" She depressed the trigger, aiming at Hogarth's arms. The e-cell hissed, its charge depleted. Gallows only managed a step.

The axe fell with a _hiss_ and a _thud_. It carved deep into Gabriel's thick skull, finding the pulpy brain underneath. The Mutant's eyes lost focus, but what remained of its mouth was smiling. A thin, lipless, warped thing, missing too many teeth.

"I… see. You're… just like me."

The Regulator spat on it as the light of its perverted life fled Gabriel's eyes. Its mangled body gave up a moment later with a final shudder. For a moment, the only sound was that of dozens of people breathing, none daring to break the silence.

Then Hog's legs went out from under him, the Regulator collapsed, and all hell broke loose.

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: Longest TTL chapter yet. With this, Atom draws to its belated end. I almost split this chapter in two again, but it wouldn't have been fair, so I'll leave you on a high note and postpone the aftermath of the battle at The Crossing to the beginning of the next Arc,_ _ **Foundry**_ _. Which I'm quite scared to write, all things considered._

 _As with every other Arc End, there is no better place for the silent readership to come out of the woods for once and leave some feedback on the direction the story it's taking, the tone of it, the characters and everything else. Don't miss out on this chance._

' _Till next time,_

 _Alexeij_


	15. Interlude I: The Guardian

**Interlude I: The Guardian**

 _AN: My thanks to the usual crew:_ _ **Aegon Blacksteel, The Desert Dancer, Alternative NonFiction, PartyPat22, Pro Assassin**_ _and_ _ **Paladin Delta**_ _._

 _I know, it's not a full chapter. It's really more like a one-shot I had planned, but put here to 1) show the story ain't dead, 2) reveal more about the universe and 3) keep you company while I work on Foundry and more MiA – I'm about halfway through the last Longest Day chapter._

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The guardian slept. His ponderous back rose and fell regularly as he lay on the rocky overlook dominating The Crossing, where the Shenandoah flowed into the Potomac. His ears twitched at the crowing of scavenger birds, at the whispers of the wind blowing through the dead woods, even at the creaks and groans of the old bridge down below as the water lapped and eroded patiently at its pylons.

And yet, even when the blimp cast its impressive shadow over the valley, the guardian's rest remained unperturbed. An observer may even call it pacific. Slow breaths escaped his muzzle. His breath was foul with the smell of blood and animal flesh from a recent meal.

His breath hitched for but a moment when the dream began.

He was in that chamber again, ensconced in the depths of the earth. Many had died defending the place in the name of values and words that had no meaning to the guardian at the time. To this day, they still didn't, even after he learned their significance over the years, or at least the concept behind them.

Faith was an empty construct, of human minds for human minds. So were Rebirth, Hope, Vengeance, and Hubris.

To the guardian, only the Pack mattered. Only the Pack held significance and guidance. Only the Pack was worthy of unwavering loyalty and sacrifice. When the Pack was threatened, the guardian fought not to bring harm, but to protect.

Many a formidable warrior had stood in the way of his Pack and their erstwhile allies that day. Many formidable warriors had fallen on both sides as they descended deeper and deeper into that fleshy nest. The guardian didn't remember their names, nor their faces. The dream only evoked the memory of smells, growing fainter with time and tainted by the sweetness of death.

Only one formidable warrior, the guardian himself, reached the chamber under the Formless-One-And-Many's onslaught of voices, mind, and will. All the other warriors were ravaged into madness the deeper they descended, their minds turned into food and more power for the Formless-One-And-Many.

The Alpha was not among their numbers.

Because she was Alpha, she was more than any member of the Pack. Because she was more than all those mighty warriors, she was Alpha. As such, she protected and guided the Pack in ways no warrior ever could. She ensured the Pack's survival in the present and in the future.

The guardian had recognized her as Alpha long before others started to follow her. Her previous Pack had cast her off, so he became her Pack. And even when it was only the two of them once again, she continued to be Alpha, incapable to be anything else.

In his memory, the Formless-One-And-Many had spoken for a long time. So had the Alpha. In the dream, their words blurred together as time bent to a will not his own, until only the Compulsion reverberated in the guardian's mind.

The Formless-One-And-Many had stripped him of identity, twisted the very idea of the Pack until it became a tool to enforce the Compulsion.

Then it had changed him in body as well, to ensure the Compulsion would have a vessel to carry on its task in perpetuity.

As dream and memory blended further, their tendrils touching and meshing together, the Alpha started to change herself.

The female with fur like the sun and the voice of the sky morphed into the grey male obsessed with his misconception of Legacy and unbound for it by human snags in ways even the guardian wasn't.

This male transformed into another, the traveler who remained ignorant of the Legacy to this day and always would, the broken idealist forever doomed to regret his decisions. The guardian had thought his time passed, his role exhausted. He tasted disgust at the traveler's betrayal of his Pack, but the Compulsion didn't care for the guardian's opinions. He was just a vessel. Like with the grey male, only the Legacy had any value to the Compulsion.

The traveler faded too, and the guardian relaxed in his sleep again. In the traveler's place appeared the young female that had been the guardian's Pack and ward for a brief time, thousands of miles away, close to where it all began. She had refused the Legacy imposed on her, struggling to lift the burdens from countless others to ease her own.

Her defiance was pointless, just as the traveler's ignorance was no extenuation from his fate. The Legacy wouldn't be denied, and the Compulsion would make sure the guardian was where he needed to be when he needed to be there.

The guardian could feel them all, even the Alpha. Some were distant, others closer than he'd ever have thought. Some were as strong as they'd ever been, others were so feeble they were barely a flicker in his mind. He could even begin to see them, shadows and blurs as the dream started to fray and slip away, as the Compulsion cut his rest short once more with a pervasive command.

All of them still had a part to play, even the Alpha. The guardian knew it with absolute certainty. And yet, as the Compulsion whispered to him so once more, the burning presence of his current ward stirred into motion, growing into sharper focus and eclipsing the others.

The guardian's yellow eyes opened as the pup's did.

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 _Thank you for reading. Don't forget to_ _ **review**_ _._


	16. Foundry I: On the Nung River banks

**Foundry I) On the Nung River banks**

The _Albatross's_ engines buzzed with a low, monotonous insistence that carried down the mooring lines and into the ground under Sarah's feet. The unfamiliar vibrations traveled up her titanium-encased feet all the way to her helmetless face, sinking into her bones. Odd as it was, it did keep her awake and attentive enough to ignore the throbbing pain from her bruised throat and instead pinch the bridge of her nose.

"How is it even still alive, Liz?"

Senior Scribe Elizabeth Jamison looked up from her clipboard at the lump of charred and abused flesh and bones secured to a metallic stretcher on the ground by the _Albatross'_ access ramp, awaiting to be hauled on for shipping. Thick cables and bindings secured the damaged torso; its legs were missing, as was one arm, and its skull was carved nearly in two.

And yet, there was no mistaking the shallow rise and fall of Gabriel's chest, nor the rictus of a grin adorning the super mutant's still, ravaged face.

Jamison licked her dry lips. Her voice was as pinched as her face, the same look she sported whenever she was faced with a new challenge but was more than ready to smash her head against that new brick wall until it relented, or she caused herself a concussion.

"I don't have a clue, Sarah. It should be dead, several times over," she muttered, forgoing ranks for familiarity in the brief lull from protocol afforded by the airship's racket, "and right now, I wouldn't call it alive, other than on a purely biological level. The FEV is keeping its heart from stopping, as far as I can tell, but half the brain is still back at the church, or under a petri dish. At best, it should remain a veggie."

"Should?" She trusted Elizabeth's professional opinion, but Sarah couldn't shake the feeling that kind of assumption stood on shaky legs.

' _Why won't it stop grinning?!'_

"It's my best informed guess."

Sarah swallowed around the finger-shaped bruises darkening on her neck, failing to suppress a grimace. Comatose or not, she'd have someone always keep an eye on it on the way back to the Citadel, brief as the flight would be.

The Scribe nodded, then glanced at her briefly, the corners of her lips turning down.

"What?"

"You should have that looked at. It looks… well, kind of nasty."

Sarah shook her head. "It's nothing," she insisted stubbornly, "only a bad bruise." At a single look around the open field where the _Albatross_ had touched down a couple hours before, she felt her statement grimly validated.

A few Regulators and those Brothers not busy with removing slave collars and organizing the dwellers were digging the last three of nearly a dozen graves in the hard-packed soil. Others were heaping stones removed from the low wall surrounding the church's cemetery over the ones already covered.

The bodies of the dead still awaiting burial lay a little ways away, wrapped in their bloodied brown dusters or threadbare blue suits, but not much more. Sonora Cruz's people were nothing if not practical, underneath their recklessness.

With Vargas at the Citadel treating Kodiak and the other wounded from Front Constantine, it had fallen on the Vaultie doctor, one Jonas Palmer, and a few people half-trained in first aid to treat the dozens of wounded. Even later, with the _Albatross's_ supplies and more knowledgeable scribes, the disproportion in numbers was such that many just weren't reached in time, all of them Regulators or Vaulties.

Not a voice insisted for the wounded slavers to receive any treatment. A knife across the throat was enough for most of them, one of the few issues that found Sonora Cruz and her in agreement.

As for the few to surrender, Gallows still had to reappear from where he disappeared with the more promising candidates. The rest were tossed in the river to feed the mirelurks.

Sarah's sweep halted. She unblinkingly held the resentful glare of an old Regulator until the older man looked away first. Pushing down a frustrated sigh, she glanced up at the sun, already past the halfway point up in its climb to the zenith. Frowning slightly, she patted Jamison gingerly on the shoulder and motioned at a passing Knight to come and stand guard over the Senior Scribe.

A large part of her, the one that still went over and over those frantic moments in the church and was plagued by the stinging pinprick of a needle teasing circles on the skin of her neck, just wanted to unload her rifle into Gabriel's exposed brain until it was burned mush beyond any form of regeneration.

The other, sensible part of her led her feet back into the town, towards the crumbled profile of the bell tower, to find Sonora Cruz and some answers.

0 * TTL * 0

"I'm coming, and that's it," Herman Gomez stated, sallow and bruised face set in a pinched grimace in the dim light of the church. A scrounged up set of combat armor, still painted red from its previous owner, hung from his tall, wiry frame. "You'll need me."

"Like fuck we do," Wernher sneered, scratching his filthy beard. He crossed his burly arms over his chest, then tilted his chin at the Vault's security officer, and Hogarth's erstwhile martial arts teacher. "Look at you. I know how Eulogy's boys break the troublesome merchandise. You haven't had a decent meal in forever. You're weak, and weak will get everyone killed where we're going."

Hogarth looked up from a particularly large pool of orange-greenish blood. He knew he must have looked a like wreck – he certainly felt like one - but when Gomez stiffened, he felt a twinge in his chest that had little to do with long-mended tissues and more with annoyance.

Most other dwellers had already returned to their ways of stepping on eggshells around him, as if on instinct. The only ones lagging behind were those too exhausted or sobbing over their dead friends and relatives. Oddly enough, he found little comfort in the familiar routine.

Who would have thought?

The names of the dead, or worse, the _turned_ , chased each other just behind his eyes: Tom Holden, baseball prick Allen Mack, Jeremiah Hill, Paul Hannon Jr… the orange, hulking bodies were already long gone by the time he woke up with an intact ribcage. A little over thirty dwellers survived the night at the Crossing.

Amata wasn't among them.

She, along with nearly every woman from the Vault, had already been shipped up the railways. On the first cargo train to the Pitt in fact, Gomez told him. Shipped to hell on earth together with his wife, Pepper. With Suzie, Christine, even that well-intentioned loon Beatrice.

From what Wernher said as he recovered, among many other things, the ones left at the Crossing were those too headstrong and troublesome to make a quick, pretty penny out of. Herman Gomez certainly fit the bill, but the Holdens? Jonas? What selection criteria was at work there, if any?

Hogarth shook his head. That didn't make much sense, but it didn't need to. What was done, was done. The voice in his head was right: he needed to look and plan ahead, one step at a time. The trip through the Appalachians to the Pitt would be hard, the former slave insisted categorically. The wildlife was supposed to be several levels of nasty, at least until they got to the first way station at Meat Park.

Then things would get only nastier and more difficult.

Just by looking at him with a clinical, unbiased eye, Hog saw Gomez wouldn't be able to keep up, no matter his dogged determination. The armor hung off of stretched out skin and showing bones. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with black. Where he walked the halls of the Vault with an easy fluidity, his shoulder shuddered with tension, pain, and exhaustion alike.

"They'll need you here, Gomez," he muttered harshly, "the rules and taboos of the Vault mean jack shit anymore. You saw how it is: it's kill or be killed, fuck or be fucked, and you're the only one who can wield a gun and teach everyone else. Who else's going to lead them?"

Gomez glared at a smug Wernher, then turned to Hogarth, jaw set stubbornly. "Jonas's there, and these Brotherhood people offered to shelter everyone at their Citadel. You've got no right to brush me off, Hogarth," he hissed, "I taught you everything you know. And after what you did to Freddy, you _owe_ me."

Hogarth arched an eyebrow, surprise flaring behind his blankest mask of practiced, abrasive indifference. Surprise at Gomez digging _that_ up. Surprise at how, even after taking lives in cold blood in the few weeks outside the Vault, _that_ episode still constricted his chest in guilt and smoldering shame.

- _the eye bulb popped wetly, and the vitreous humor seeped down between his fingers -_

 _\- the crack of cartilage and ligaments giving in under a single, devastating blow. A boy, writhing on the ground, hands clutching at a lolling leg -_

 _\- ribs straining, cracking, then snapping. A wet gurgle of surprise, oh so satisfactory -_

 _\- Amata, choking down a scream of shock -_

" _ **Enough wallowing, pup."**_

Hog found himself sitting again on the lumpy mattress in the stifling air of the church turned slave-pens turned holding cell. Gomez and Wernher were engaged in a rather one sided stare-and-glare contest, despite the former slave's handicap. Hog let out a heavy breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, then toyed with the fraying corner of his scarf.

That the other dwellers wouldn't be left to fend for themselves alone in the wilderness eased the burden, but only by a fraction. This Brotherhood had helped in taking the Crossing, but they also unapologetically sequestered Jonas away to treat their own wounded before the Regulators'.

Sonora's rather vocal displeasure at whoever commanded the Brotherhood had been what woke him in the first place.

And of course, there was the matter of the two titanium-clad walking armors waiting by the church's doors, faceless guard-dogs watching in dispassionate silence.

" _ **Give it half an hour, and they'll be passed out from exhaustion."**_

"He's got every right'n then some," Wernher scoffed, pushing himself from the wall, his single eye echoing the disdain in his voice "'cause you won't last one fucking hour in the mountains. He will. You're ballast, the kind that stands out like a fish out've water, and I've got too many lives hanging in the balance for an amateur to charge in dick first."

"I've got my wife's on the line!" Gomez retaliated, jaw set stubbornly.

"And all you're gonna accomplish with your Vaultie mug is dig'em and us a shallow grave or earn a family ticket for a one-way dive into the Shit River!" Wernher threw up his hands in exasperation, then turned to Hog. "Tie up this business with the tin cans fast. I'm leaving within the hour, with or without your sorry ass. We need to get to Meat Park by nightfall, or we'll be Crawler's chow come morning."

"I don't trust him," Gomez muttered as the slave insurrectionist walked past the Brotherhood soldiers and out of the church, "you shouldn't either, Hog. It's too convenient, and he's not telling the whole truth."

"And?" Hogarth deadpanned, balling his fist into the scarf. "He led the Regulators here," he said with finality, fixing Gomez with a hard look, "he made it possible to bust this slave-selling chain, risking his own life. He's willing to take me to the Pitt and _do something_ about this whole mess. Isn't that enough?!" His voice was rising, as was his body, but he didn't care.

This kind of blindness and self-righteousness made him bristle with resentment back in the Vault. Here, on the outside, it was revolting.

"You say I owe you a debt. I do, and I'm trying my damnedest to repay it not to you, but to every one of you ungrateful bastards!" Hogarth stepped up to Gomez, and the security agent flinched back, probably thinking he'd explode into a hulk of rippling orange muscle and snapping teeth. Funny, how he couldn't really deny that wasn't a real chance. "I've fought and killed and nearly _died_ more than once to help you all, and I haven't heard a single word of thank you! Not to me, and not to anyone else!"

Hogarth wheezed and spat, pawing at his chest where the super mutant punched him. His heart hammered against his sternum and his lungs burned. Gomez hesitated, then reached out to steady him, but Hog swatted the hand away.

Exhaustion and sadness replaced worry on the agent's face, etching deep lines onto his hispanic features.

"What did you honestly expect?"

"Is some gratitude too fucking much?!"

Gomez sighed, then shook his head forlornly. "Hog, Jesus… you broke a taboo untouched for generations, even during the chaos of Overseer Leninger's upheaval. Then James brings the Outside knocking at the Vault's door again, only worse than _anyone_ could have ever imagined." He swallowed thickly. "A lot of people are dead. The rest of us were enslaved one way or the other, families were torn apart… and then you waltz in, guns blazing, and completely at home with these people. Put yourself in their shoes."

"I've done that!" Hog snapped. "For _two_ years, I've put up with your reasons and waded through everyone's shit. When is this going to be over? What the hell do I have to do?" Horror warped his face as realization struck. "You think I asked for any of this?"

"I know you didn't… but unlike any of us, you're thriving in this environment. Just look at you."

Gomez's eyes grew distant and unfocused, but only for a moment, before they hardened to flint. "I don't hold this against you, Hog. As a father, some part of me will forever resent you, but I know a son shouldn't be accountable for the crimes of his parent. This was all James' doing… but ultimately, the Overseer was right. The door had to remain closed. There's no taking the Outside from the outsider. James had to bring it all back in, didn't he?"

Hogarth blinked, his momentum halted.

"The fuck… what are you talking about?"

There again, the sadness. No, worse, the _pity_. _'Why?'_ Gomez rubbed his face, hiding that infuriating and puzzling look, then turned away, slumping. "Nevermind. I… I'm sorry. Forget I said anything. I… I'm raving. Yeah, I'm in no condition to come along, am I?"

Despite everything hanging over their heads, Hogarth couldn't help the raw sympathy at hearing, rather than seeing, the confidence bleed out of Gomez' voice, replaced by the naked desperation of a defeated man.

What he didn't expect was the twinge of sheer disgust from that same uncompromising part of his brain that spoke and echoed to him more and more out in the wasteland.

" _ **This man has already abandoned his pack. He's surrendered. He deserves none of your time or effort."**_

Hog shook his head to silence the echoes. "Gomez, wait!" he called out. A hacking cough had him nearly bend over, then another.

The agent didn't stop, just waved a hand over his shoulder and disappeared in the bright cacophony of the outside world.

0 * TTL * 0

Gallows found her before she found Cruz. Or rather, he appeared in the path of her sweeping eyes, catching her attention from a side alley and pointing at his helmet, before he vanished again in quick order.

Sarah secured the helmet on her head, then switched to their private comm-line. True to the past day, he ruthlessly took a sledgehammer at her tried-and-true certainties.

" _Ishmael Ashur is alive. He's the Pitt's Slaver Lord. Has been for the past twenty years."_

Sarah didn't stumble, only because she didn't connect the dots at first. When she did, she barely resisted the urge to curse, loudly and foully.

Blurry memories resurfaced from her childhood, of a bearded, gentle face and stories on the long path across the country.

She knew better than to ask if he was sure. The Circle taught its operative to extract information against the strongest of conditioning, and Gallows had a lot of practice.

" _Then all of this is on us."_

" _Maybe. Maybe not. The man is a traitor. I can hunt him down. Just give me the order."_

Sarah didn't doubt Gallows could handle it. Her next thought, however, was for her father. Her father, who caught in the delirium of a fever, blabbered about the Pitt. To Sarah, that night was a flash of fires and explosions. The venerable man, however, sobbed and cried in his sleep like a child as guilt wracked him as much as the illness.

Knowing that one of his own was the cause of so much suffering would be the final blow for his frail heart, and he'd see right through her, should she lie on where Gallows had suddenly disappeared to.

" _No,"_ she murmured, coming to a decision, smothering her own doubts under filial affection, _"not now. I need you here. Once the frankesteins are dealt with and we've got a better understanding of the Enclave, then we'll bring this to the Elder."_

The eradication of the super mutants was not going to be a quick endeavor, if Constantine was anything to go by. Arthur would be Elder by then, and her father… after a life of sacrifices, her father would at least die peacefully and unburdened by this one piece of knowledge.

Gallows remained silent for quite a bit. Unabashed, Sarah arrived in clear sight of the church and the crowd of liberated dwellers, Brotherhood soldiers, and Regulators. Several heads turned to her, falling on the markings on her armor before conjuring an expression. Respect shone from her Brothers, gratitude, and suspicion from the dwellers, narrow-eyed resentment or indifference from the Regulators.

" _There's another option,"_ Gallows said, " _short-term. Not ideal, but it could work. The Pitt escapee, Wernher."_

" _What about him?"_ Sarah soldiered on, acknowledging and ignoring as she saw fit. There was something off about the one-eyed man, Sarah's gut had told her back in the church. The slight inflection in Gallows' tone echoed her own intuition. The man moved too much like a soldier, like a man of action, not someone who spent years on the other side of a whip and slave collar.

" _He says the slaves are planning a revolt and has convinced the freak Regulator to help him."_

Hogarth Mitchell. When Jamison expressed a rather keen interest in having him taken to the Citadel, Sonora Cruz almost pulled a gun on the Scribe there and then. A reckless and practical bunch, these Regulators, but also a rather protective one. Sarah didn't begrudge them. Hell, she could easily see them doing the same, were their roles reversed.

But finding a human being – or at least a human- _looking_ being – that showed the same freakish regeneration as Gabriel couldn't be a coincidence. Logic and chance told her there had to be a common denominator. The information gleaned by just having the Scribes observe him and run unobtrusive tests could save dozens of lives.

And yet, he saved hers. Nearly killed her only lead, but half-dead on his legs, he stopped Gabriel moments away from injecting her with the FEV.

Under the armor, her fingers twitched with the urge to scratch her neck, just to reassure herself the needle didn't puncture her skin.

Thoughts swirling painfully, Sarah muttered, _"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."_

" _The enemy of my enemy's my enemy's enemy,"_ Gallows retorted flatly. _"But whatever his intentions, a revolt may throw the Pitt into complete chaos. Weaken Ashur. Perhaps even topple him."_

0 * TTL * 0

After Gomez left, Hogarth took several calming breaths, deflating a little. Each was somewhat easier than the one before, and soon the lingering pain in his chest had faded completely.

Alone and with nothing else to focus on but his own thoughts – previous experience told him that jailers didn't make for eager chit-chatters – he found himself pacing aimlessly and growing more restless with every stretching, ticking minute.

He didn't doubt Wernher would leave without him: he'd spoken of other associates, or maybe he'd just go on alone. Whatever the case, Hog's window to penetrate the Pitt would close in his face. As the minutes slipped between his fingers and his feet ate a path in the dirt-slathered tiles, he started eyeing the broken windows and the doors with increasing insistence.

So it was that he spotted the new figure in power armor approach and remain framed in the empty door frame for a long moment. Twin roaring lions adorned the armor's chest plate and pauldrons, the design less on the tasteful and more on the intimidating side.

The two guards straightened at attention, but the newcomer waved a hand. After a moment's hesitation, they turned face and plodded out, just as the newcomer marched in through the pews, steps echoing dully, eye-lenses levelled at him and unwavering.

He had to admit, it _was_ rather intimidating.

With a hiss, the helmet came off, and part of the spell was broken. Hog's brain teased him with a vague sense of familiarity and his first impression was that Lucy or Suzie had gone through a very radical change of clothes. That line of thought fizzled pretty quickly.

This woman was blonde, and there might be some faint, cursory resemblance in the line of the eyes, but there was no trace of Suzie and Lucy's lingering teenage fat. Her features were chiseled, her sun-beaten skin splashed unapologetically with dirt, sweat and a few choice specks of dry blood.

On such a face, on top of a rather disproportionate suit of armor straight out of a propaganda vid with executed civilians, Hog instinctively expected a glare to match the helmeted stare, probing and insistent. What he got was a mulling look, stern, yes, but not aggressive.

They were old eyes, on a much younger face.

"Hogarth Mitchell?"

Her voice was somewhat familiar too. He nodded warily, hands down his sides. The butt of some rifle poked over her shoulder, magnetically attached. "And you are?"

"We didn't get properly acquainted last night," she said with a grimace, then offered her titanium-encased hand. "Sent - Star Paladin Sarah Lyons, East Coast Brotherhood of Steel."

He studied her for a moment, then guardedly shook the hand. The metal was cold.

The name Brotherhood was one he'd heard mentioned before, once or twice. Simms had called them the top dogs of D.C., or something like that. Lots of heavy ordinance, as he could see plainly before him, but they kept mostly to the city's confines, on the other side of the Potomac. Decent guys, for the most part, at least as long as their armors were painted gray and blue.

" _You ever chance on those black and red Outcasts, make yourself scarce, unless you've got a lot of explosives to spare,"_ he remembered the sheriff say. _"They're as likely to ignore you as they are to shoot you dead, just 'cause you might have some fancy laser rifle."_

Star Paladin Lyons' armor was very much gray and blue under the dirt and dust. Her name too struck a cord… what else had Simms said? Right, this Brotherhood's leader was supposedly one Elder Lyons. A daughter then? Granddaughter? Maybe a niece?

Definitely someone high-ranking, anyway. As if the fancy title didn't imply as much already.

"You're the one who offered to take in my -" he picked his brain for the proper word, found none, and quickly retreated on a periphrasis, "the other Vaulties?"

"The offer's open to you too." She arched a bemused eyebrow at him. "You _are_ from Vault 101, aren't you?"

Hogarth let out a humorless chuckle and patted the pocket where he kept his Pip-Boy. "It's a long and sorry story. Nevermind. Thank you, for pulling them out of the fire."

The Brotherhood Paladin looked a smidge uncomfortable at that. "I'm not doing it out of the goodness of my heart, just so you know. My order needs people with Dr. Palmer's skills, and your technicians will be useful. Some of them, with the right training, may even join our ranks, if they'll wish so. In any case, everyone will have to work for the Brotherhood. We don't have the resources to do charity."

"You informed them of all that? And they agreed?" he asked suspiciously, shoulders tensing.

"Of course," she retorted bluntly. She actually sounded a tad affronted. That boded well.

"Then that's fair," Hog said, shrugging. Earn your keep might have been the Vault's unofficial motto, once all the propaganda was removed. "Fairer than they'd get anywhere else, anyway. They are… good people;" he ground out, "just scared shitless, and way out of their comfort zone."

"And you aren't?" she inquired. "That's a pretty bold statement."

"It's… complicated." He shrugged again. "Or maybe it isn't, and I only have a big head." Hog looked away briefly, rubbing his forehead. A short breath later, he glanced back up at the Star Paladin. "Look, I appreciate what you've done. I really do, but I'm running out of time. You want something from me, the guards made that much clear. Just tell me what's what, and we can settle this."

She regarded him closely for long moments, then smoothly spun on her heel. Over the grinding _clack-clack_ of her falling steps, she called over her shoulder.

"Come with me."

Hog shielded his face from the bright sun with a hand, even as he breathed out the musty fetor that permeated the church and now, it seemed, his nose and lungs as well. Voices, clatter, and noise revved up from smothered echoes, but then they fell silent for a single moment. Hog blinked, his jaw hanging slightly.

"What the -

The pre-war town widened before and around him. Down on the parvis, Regulators and Brotherhood soldiers mingled with Vaulties, eating and resting in groups. A few heads turned towards him, or were already watching the church when he walked out.

It was the huge profile of a balloon beyond the walled perimeter, taller than the walls and any colonial-style house or brick two-storeys and spanning the length of several, that riveted him to the floor. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.

Sarah Lyons was definitely amused this time. And quite a bit proud. "That's the _Albatross_ , one of the Brotherhood's airships. Not even the largest, from what I'm told."

"I, uh, I saw it on the way here." He had indeed, but there was quite a hell of a difference from glancing up at a blurry blot against a leaden sky, and there, moored just past the town's edge. "So that was you."

Sarah nodded, then started down the steps. Hog shook himself and hurried to catch up. He was a tall man, but even without her armor, she'd probably look him in the eye, easily.

"I won't beat around the bush. I respect what you're trying to do and what you've accomplished so far," she said evenly, then threw him a sidelong glance, "but going into the Pitt right now is completely fucking retarded, even with your ace up the sleeve, so to speak."

"Doesn't matter," he said, unperturbed by her frankness, "won't stop me from trying, anyway."

"I figured as much," she retorted with a sigh, then her voice lowered an octave, "but just so you know, it doesn't have to go like that."

"How's that?"

By then, they had waded through the few lines of houses and strewn debris from the recent assault, through a newly demolished section of the wall and onto the stretch of flat, dark ground north of the Crossing. The _Albatross_ was moored there, standing nearly forty feet tall. The armored aerostatic balloon bulged outward, looking ready to roll out of its armature and squash him like a fly. Several Brotherhood people in heavy aviator outfits, masks, and goggles busied around the zeppelin, while more armored types hung around a ramp leading deeper into its belly. Several vault dwellers already loitered around the area, casting looks conflicted between the dubious and the awed at every turn.

"I was little when the Brotherhood traveled through the mountains from the Pitt to D.C.," Sarah Lyons said slowly, "but I remember it was a hard few weeks in the mountains, and that was with a party several hundred strong. On the _Albatross_ , full speed, you'd get there in a matter of hours. And you'd have more than a revolutionary wannabe at your back."

"Not much for inconspicuousness."

Lyons chuckled heartily. "Come again? Have you seen the armor? The Brotherhood doesn't do inconspicuous." She stared off into the distance, and her voice grew inscrutable with thick, rumbling emotion, "Listen, Hogarth: we already cleansed the Pitt once, and I've recently learned we may have a… personal stake in going in for a repeat."

Something in the way the Star Paladin said that had the hair on Hog's neck stand on end.

The unease did help him unglue his eyes from the _Albatross_. He folded his arms across his chest, sizing up the Star Paladin again. "I'm sensing a 'but' there."

Lyons fixed him with a gaze so intense, Hog almost felt threatened. "Other situations retain precedence, for now: the super mutant threat is ramping up exponentially, and -"

"No," he ruled out immediately. " _This_ situation can't fucking wait."

"Look, I understand, but -"

"No, you don't!" Hogarth hissed, glaring as the Star Paladin frowned, doubtlessly displeased at being interrupted twice in a row. "Nobody told you? Near all of the women my age and short of their thirties have already been shipped to the Pitt!"

"I won't pretend I know -"

Right, she couldn't know about Almodovar's hard on for institutionalized scheduled breeding and social engineering. He figured that kind of shit, at least, wasn't a basic happenstance in the wastes. His annoyance deflated, just a little.

He shook his head. "It's not that. Nine out of ten of them are pregnant."

It was Lyons' turn to blink. "That's… God," Lyons covered her mouth with a hand, face contorting in horror, then rubbed her throat, looking slightly sick. It was only then that Hogarth noticed the bruises sneaking out of her undersuit. Finger-shaped bruises and recent ones at that, just about starting to darken.

Something clicked in place among the many gears spinning in his head. The talkative green hulk had been holding someone hostage and threatening to do… something that had the word _ascension_ slapped there somewhere, best he could remember.

So it was her.

Their exchange wasn't passing unnoticed. What had been sidelong glances and curious looks became intent glares: the still helmets were a dead giveaway, and the few bare faces wore expressions bordering on hostility. Many of the dwellers fit right in with that bunch, though their glares were more practiced.

Gomez' stance on the sharing of paternal blame looked more and more unique to him by the minute.

The odd one out was a woman in heavy brown robes, looming over a stretcher with some charred lump of flesh strapped on. She regarded him with disquieting interest, and not the flattering kind, before jotting down a few notes.

Quoting a Grognak crossover, his Moira's sense started tingling something fierce.

Some of Wernher's words, ensnared in the cobwebs of his non-sleep throughout the night, disentangled their way to clarity just then.

" _Don't trust them tin cans, boy. Their values shift more than a whore's interest, but they're damn big on shooting down all kind of muties. Don't even think your healing trick doesn't grant you a free entry into the club, either."_

" _ **Fool. If she wanted you seized, you'd be the one strapped there, not the super mutant."**_

Hog shifted his weight on his hip, coiling his muscles underneath the bulky parka for a quick hammer strike to the Star Paladin's exposed throat or temple. The blonde woman had recovered her composure, however, and the slight narrowing of her sharp eyes was all he needed to know she was onto him.

To his surprise, she raised a hand in a mollifying gesture, keeping it well clear of her rifle's stock. Not that a single punch from her servo-augmented fist wouldn't be enough to clean his clock twice over.

"I won't force you to come," she said after a moment, voice bleeding weary honesty, "It wouldn't be fair towards the Regulators, and especially towards you. I owe you that much, at least. Quite a bit more than that, in fact."

Hogarth cocked his head at her, forcing his eyebrows to stay down despite the surprise. Then, very slowly, his not-so-subtle stance relaxed.

"You really believe coming with you to your Citadel is the best course of action."

"… I do," she stated resolutely after a single moment of consideration, eyes boring into his. "It won't be as fast as you like, but alone, you'd just be throwing your life away. Not to mention your condition. We can help you," she added, "maybe even reverse it."

"This freak mutation's what's kept me alive so far. I'd be dead two or three times over by now, and that's just off the top of my head. So, thank you but no." He held her look, then jabbed a thumb at the creepily-interested woman with the brown robes and clipboard. "And looks like that make your help and reverse sound a lot more like _study_ and _experiment_ , to me."

"Goddamnit, Liz," Lyons breathed harshly, before switching gears. Her hands remained clear of the laser rifle on her back. "Look, I meant it when I said I won't force your decision. You've earned the choice… but you'll agree it's a big damn coincidence that Gabriel and you share the same boggling regeneration, or whatever you call it?"

"I don't think it's a coincidence at all," he retaliated, finding himself believing her despite lingering misgivings. Namely, the other Brotherhood soldiers who didn't look quite as readily accepting.

Then inspiration struck. "The mutant, Gabriel, it held a syringe at your neck, am I wrong?" he only half-guessed, fragmented memories assembling to form clearer images.

Her stiff nod told him he'd struck gold.

He decided to throw a bone at her. Her honesty, despite a few choice words, deserved as much. "I was injected myself by some stupid mishap, from what I'm told. Lost all my hair as a result."

Lyons almost rolled her eyes. "Right, because that's the pertinent part." She sobered up a moment later. "Who did that to you? Don't –"

"Whoa, hold your horses," he interjected hurriedly, waving his hands, "it wasn't the Regulators, before you go pointing fingers and throwing blame around. And as I said, it was an honest mistake." At least, that's what Simms and Lucy seemed to believe. Considering Moira's excitement and eagerness at putting him in a petri dish, however… It was either some really dumb luck, or another really weird coincidence.

"Besides, the point's moot. It was a single vial."

"I need to know more," Lyons insisted, a fervent light shining in her eyes. "Where did it come from? What was in it? Who's the manufacturer?"

"Probably from the North," he hazarded, recalling some scraps of casual conversation between Moira and her husband, "Boston or nearby those parts, but I wouldn't put any serious money on it. Look, provided you're quick about it, I can give you some samples of blood for the eggheads to play with. God knows that won't do me in."

"Ah – good, yes," she recovered quickly. "Come this way."

Not five minutes later, the woman he'd dubbed Dr. Jekyll – actually, a rather polite if intense woman by the name of Elizabeth Jamison, Senior Scribe of the Order of the Quill, whatever that meant – gingerly pocketed several sealed vials of his blood. Much to her dismay, Hogarth flat out refused to have his iliac bone drilled again, more so since the Scribe lacked the proper tools to do so, but wore a look disquietingly similar to Moira's.

It didn't help that Hog had figured Jonas would be the one to take care of the procedure. It was the last, best chance to have a face to face with his father's assistant before he departed. Since he'd woken up properly from the agony-induced not-sleep of the night before, something from his brief time in the Clinic with Jonas the day Talon busted in had been nagging at him. For the life of him, he couldn't put a finger on it.

Alas, a doctor's work was never done, especially in the aftermath of a battle.

"He hasn't stopped since we removed his collar," Lyons told him at one point. "It's not often you see such a driven man. He's putting my best Scribes to shame, pretty damn inspiring."

Stalling Jamison's hovering scalpel from extracting its ounce of flesh from him at least provided some distraction from suspecting something afoul from one of his oldest friends.

"Here, take this." Lyons handed him a broad, thick blade by its sheath once he was free of Jamison's paws. A bit light-headed, Hog grabbed the ergonomic handle a bit clumsily, and was surprised by the weight of the thing. The obvious lack of balance made him frown, but Lyons just gestured at him to denude the blade.

Adjusting his grip, he drew, and paused. _'Oh.'_ Being an engineer and handyman by heart and necessity, the hideous bastard lovechild child of a knife and a chainsaw didn't fail to conjure some sick form of fascination into him. He felt his lips twitch into a grin.

"This is a sexy one."

"Sexy and messy," Lyons chuckled along, then sobered up. "It belonged to one of my Knights. He died recently."

"Ah. I'm sorry." Hog sheathed the blade and made to hand it over. "I can't take it."

"No, it's yours now. Just watch out, it's got a mean kickback."

A bit nonplussed, Hog started to edge away, eyeing the hole in the wall and trying to figure out where Wernher would be.

"I'll do that," he offered back," thank you."

"No, thank you," she nearly spat in one harsh exhale.

Hog froze, eyeing her like she'd grown a second head.

Her lips twitched. "Don't look at me like that. I'm not the best at this, but I'm not some ungrateful bitch. You did me a solid, back there. I appreciate it."

"Ah, right, uh," Hog nearly blabbered, his tongue tied into knots. She'd just _thanked_ him, just like that, out of the blue. "You're welcome?"

She patted him on the shoulder and a slight wince washed some of the confusion away.

"For what it's worth, I really hope you succeed."

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: My thanks to the usual crew_ _ **PartyPat22, PaladinDelta, Alternative NonFiction, Aegon Blacksteel, The Desert Dancer**_ _and_ _ **Solivore (x2)**_ _for their feedback and reviews. To everyone else, this isn't an exclusive club: there isn't any entrance fee, either. Just drop a_ _ **review**_ _with some feedback, thank you._

 _Last chapter was strange. This chapter kinda was as well to write. Could be because I'm awake most nights and asleep most afternoon, though. And I've stopped using Grammarly, because the free version is more trouble than it's worth. Let's just hope it wasn't a stale read._

 _P.S. Another round of Fallout Fic recommendations. Been a while since the last one. Give them a chance and some love:_

 _\- Dust to Ashes, by colstrent. A near cyborg Courier winds up in the Commonwealth and crosses paths with the General. Prepare for a few gut punches and quite a few AU elements. Now with 120% more Enclave!_

 _\- The Courier and her Conscience, by ScrimshawPen. A believable take on the Courier's journey, with Arcade along for the run since nearly the get go. Layered, flawed characters, spot-on voices, and some original elements in the plot as well._

 _\- A Beautiful Heart, by DocMarten2525. A pre-SS investigative thriller with a super Nick Valentine and a completely original plot. Saying more would just spoil a beautifully heart-wrenching story. Just one chapter shy of the end as well._

 ** _Edit 28/08/17: PartyPat22_** _is better than Grammarly._


	17. Foundry II: Steamboat to Central Station

**Foundry II: A Steamboat to Central Station**

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **Colstrent (x11!), Aegon Blacksteel, PartyPat22, The Desert Dancer, Alternate NonFiction, Solivore, DmCrebel25 (x16!)**_ _and_ _ **Master Doom Maker (x2)**_ _for their feedback, reviews, and critiques. That was a lot of reviews._

 _For anybody wishing for a help in visualizing Hog's trip, just go to Google maps and search for directions, by train, between Harper's Ferry and Pittsburgh._

0 = TTL = 0

The twenty or so miles of countryside between The Crossing and Martinsburg –rechristened by its new inhabitants as The Meat Park, or so Wernher insisted – bared little resemblance to the satellite maps downloaded into Hog's Pip-Boy. The orderly, intensively toiled farmlands frozen in digital memory lay now in forlorn abandonment. Their sentinels were ones of red rust and gray stillness, in the shape of tractors and assorted farm machinery, long stripped bare of anything remotely useful or recyclable.

Hog and Wernher traversed the fields for hours at a steady, hungry, demanding pace, pushing through leafless hedgerows and leaving deep imprints in the crumbling, dry soil. The railway was a constant fixture to their right. At times, the dull metal caught the fierce sunlight and it flashed alight like a yellow brick road, only to be concealed again by the corpse of mother nature a step later.

It led the duo north and west on a convoluted path, past dilapidated farmsteads and stable-doors hanging hazardously from rust-eaten hinges, creaking and threatening to collapse with every odd breath of wind. They crossed the dirt-strewn tarmac of disused country roads cracked by serpentine ravines, the everlasting marks of detonation-induced earthquakes. They passed orchards curving along the gentle slopes of hills, rows upon rows of barren, blackened trees collapsed one upon the other like drunken fools.

Wernher led him in wide, time-expensive circles around the latter, citing them as deadly mazes and perfect ambush sites they better not stick even their pinkies into. Those weren't the only deviations. More than once, their progress slowed to a crawl as they picked their pace around molerat spawning grounds or a trail of flattened, half-decomposed cultures, left by creatures that, to Hog's untrained and sweat-prickled eyes, seemed to _slither_ , rather than walk on paws. Oily-looking, fingernail-shaped scales of green and black pockmarked the brittle, squashed vegetation, while long-toed imprints bit into the ground to either side of the main trail.

Every time, Wernher simply ruled, "Crawlers," and held his assault rifle a tad more closely to his chest.

Four hours and about eleven miles away from The Crossing, Wernher called a halt in the northern outskirts of the town of Kearneysville. The duo consumed a cold meal of molerat jerky and water within the roofless four walls of the Grace Church. Their sole company was a dozen or so yellowed skeletons in their consumed Sunday bests, slumped, scattered, or still bowed on the pews in grinning caricatures of worship. More were crushed under the rotten beams of the roof the duo used as seats, or buried under heaps tiles, dirt, and moldy prayer books. A fine, yellow-white dust covered the pavement and debris alike, lifting in thinning puffs with every step.

Hog ate his jerky quickly, biting down on the salted, tough meat with stubborn single-mindedness. He tried to ignore the hair on his neck standing at attention every time he looked down at the scattered bones of a hand, the cartilage long decomposed, or how his gut churned insistently at every skull grinning his way.

Still, it was an undeniable relief to unwrap the shemagh from around his face and breathe without the coarse, dirt-speckled cloth tickling his nose. The air grew heavier with humidity with every mile, and by Kearneysville, a dirty, stinky film of sweat glued the scarf to his face. The parka Simms insisted he wore in Megaton didn't help things either, but Hog hadn't had the heart to take some of the few usable clothes scavenged at The Crossing from the other Vaulties, whose suits at that point had been largely unsalvageable. So, he suffered the heat in silence, and drank his water.

"Smoke?"

Hog's head snapped up and was met with Wernher's crooked grin around a burning cigarette and an half-empty pack in his extended hand. The acrid stink of old tobacco made the hair in his nose crinkle.

Hog studied it like it was a live grenade, only more unfamiliar. "I don't smoke."

"Ever tried?"

A shake of his head. "We didn't have any in the Vault. The Overseer thought it was wasteful as entertainment went. Not worth cultivating the tobacco in the hydroponics bays."

"Bet he did." Wernher shrugged. "You might as well give it a go. You'll want a poison to blend in with the crowd, and you don't look the drinker to me. Too much broody by half, there's no need to give that a hand up. 'Sides, ain't like you're gonna sprout cancer or cough tar anytime soon."

Hog tilted his head, an eyebrow twitching at Wernher's smirk, then he shrugged and leaned forward. He picked a butt between his thumb and pointer, then flipped it around, emulating Wernher's pose with awkward fingers. The ex-slave chuckled and leaned in with a lit match. The acrid smoke of tobacco and dry paper curling and burning made Hog look back wistfully at the scarf. Then he instinctively inhaled. A sharp cough almost sent the cig tumbling in his lap.

"Don't draw on it like that," Wernher scolded over Hog's barking cough, "do it slowly. Let it last. Try to relax."

His second try went marginally better. By the time Wernher offered the pack back for another round, Hog felt he'd got the hang of it. Some, at least. Wernher nodded in silent approval and they shared a few, quiet moments of respite, letting their burning muscles recover before the last leg of march ahead. As the cigarette shortened and the tang of tobacco and tar grew more pungent and permeating, however, Hog found his attention shifting away from somewhat pleasant nonsense and back to Wernher.

At last, the ex-slave ground the stub on the floor and pocketed the filter. "There's something on your mind. Out with it, spud."

" _ **Don't ignore the Brown Bitch, pup. She's got good instincts."**_

On cue, Sonora's parting words blared in his skull, an echo of Gomez' warning, one of stung pride and bigoted mistrust. However, to Hog, the older woman's words were backed by a natural respect his once teacher no longer held, the kind she earned by truly sticking to her principles and people by putting herself on the frontline.

Every man and woman the Regulators lost at The Crossing was a new line on her brow or a crow's foot around her eyes. He'd tried to convey all the newfound respect and ashamed gratitude in their quick, firm forearm-grasp in the outskirts of The Crossing. She'd grabbed him by the shoulder instead, bringing her mouth close to his ear.

' _I don't trust Wernher as far as I can throw him. Watch yourself around him. And come back in one piece.'_

"Why me?"

"You wanted to come. You've got purpose. Strength too, which is always a good selling point."

Hog waited for more. Wernher climbed to his feet and popped his back loudly with a grimace.

"That's it?"

"You say that as if that's nothing," Wernher groused. "Look, spud. Sonora, them Regs? They're good folks, fanatics even, but they're tired." He grabbed his backpack and heaved it on his shoulders. His lips moved quickly, pulling and stretching the pale web of scars on his ravaged face. "They picked an endless crusade against all the shit in the Capitol, and there's no end line in sight. Nowadays, the old guard is less about want, and more about some need or call they can't help, but keeps consuming them. It stops them from giving up, but that's just about it."

Hog emulated the older man. He double checked the new strap across his chest holding Lyons' ripper, and the loop in his belt the fire axe was secured to, opposite to the holster holding the Desert Eagle. Finally, he picked up his rifle and slung the strap over his shoulder. The additional weight shifted and jingled unfamiliarly on his frame. It was something Hog was very aware of between the bulkier backpack and the combat-armor chest piece under his parka that completed his disguise as a wandering merc looking for a contract. He felt rather encumbered, all in all. Wernher had said he'd get used to it.

"I think I fall into that category too," he said suddenly.

" _ **Self-awareness? You're learning. Still a blind, mewling youngling, but you are."**_

"You? Please." Wernher sneered. "You want this. Sure, you got a mission, a girl to save, a foot to shove up the collective ass of those bigoted moles you grew up with. I hear you. But you aren't being forced into this. That self-righteous prick, Gomez whatshisname, he had the same want, yeah, I could see it." Wernher spat black and brown on the ground. "But he'd never survive what we're heading into. He's weak, and blind, and too bound to a world that doesn't exist. You're different, spud. You won't just survive. You will thrive." He offered Hog a crooked, yellowed smile, and jutted a thumb to the door.

He offered Hog a crooked, yellowed smile, and jutted a thumb to the door.

"Just stay close to Uncle Wernher and keep your mouth shut. You speak too flowery for this kind of crowd."

0 * TTL * 0

Under the orange, pink, and purple hues of the sunset over the distant Appalachian ridges, and the sickly, glowing green tinges on the gray sky further north, Wernher called a halt with a raised fist. He sniffed the air and his lips pursed into a thin, angry line.

The former slave flipped the safety off his AK-47. "Eyes peeled, spud. This trip's about to get messy."

Hog frowned in confusion and made to ask for clarification, then the stench hit him through the scarf. Coppery and rancid-sweet, it was so thick it glued to the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat, making his vision swim with nausea. It reminded him of the raiders' bodies at Tysons the day after the Regulators' blitz, only that much more sickening.

They reached the source a minute later, a little clearing near the river bank, just to the side from where the railway continued on the concrete bridge spanning across the Opequon Creek.

A fine, ethereal mist hung on the darkening expanse of water, placid and undisturbed by ripples. Shriveled, leafless trunks crowded the banks on either side of the creek, yet sparse bushes and undergrowth popped here and there in a shy touch of green and life.

The mangled, chewed up leg poking out through the brambles ruined the small, cozy image of hope. Among the blood-splattered leaves and thorns, the striking white of the snapped shin and fibula jutted out of the limb like accusing fingers.

More human detritus decorated their side of the creek. A half-hand here, a crushed, pulpy headless torso there, thrown against a moss-covered trunk. The vegetation was flattened and stomped in a wide arc, with several trees snapped like twigs by crushing force. Water, blood, and mud gathered to fill dozens of long-toed imprints in the bank' soil. Here and there, the dimming daylight reflected off the odd flaked scale. More tracks and pawprints headed off from the site and disappeared into the river.

Hog flinched, suddenly aware of his snack climbing and clawing its way up his gullet.

"Crawlers," Wernher spat. He was already pressing onto the bridge, rifle at the ready. "Recent meal, too. Stupid bastards. Must have been a new crew." He took a sniff again. "At least these didn't breathe fire."

' _They do –'_ "What?!"

"Keep moving, and no puking, for fuck's sake! The Meat Park's less than three miles away."

" _ **Follow Two-Skins, pup. Go!"**_

His body stirred into motion before his mind really caught up. Hog found himself jogging, then running after Wernher, aware of the handle of the axe beating on his thigh with every other step. The stench pursued him, growing fouler and pungent as they passed the site of the massacre – or a _feast._ It hounded his steps as his boots hit the battered concrete top of the bridge, Wernher only a few steps ahead on the narrow path between the two rails.

Something scraped against the bridge behind him, followed by a wet _pop_. Ahead, a lumpy mass of concrete stirred. Two bulbous, black eyes blinked open.

" _ **Duck!"**_

Hog's body and instincts obeyed. He twisted his body and hit the ground on one side just as an oblong, white something shot with the crack of a whip through the space his head just vacated. It retracted just as fast, disappearing in the wide, teeth-rimmed jaws of a squat, scaly creature perched on the edge of the bridge. The head alone was also nearly twice as large as Hog's torso, dominated by two pitch-black eyes locked on him.

There was a malicious, predatory intelligence gleaming within that stare.

"Fuck!" The _brakka-brakka_ of Wernher's rifle wiped the shock from Hog's mind. Hog twisted on his other side and brought up his rifle in a very improper shooting stance, before opening full-auto. Hot lead tore through the air, sending concrete chips and sparks flying everywhere, then none as recoil pushed Hog's aim up and to the side. The crawler had long disappeared below the edge. Hog scampered to his feet, trying to keep his breathing steady as he swept his rifle in an arc.

Wernher cursed again. Hog turned just in time to see the man flat on his back, winded. The other crawler's tongue dragged his rifle into its awaiting maws. The creature's jaws warped and rent the metal in two ponderous bites, before spitting it out. Unsatisfied, its four, bent paws propelled the humongous body towards Wernher at blinding speed.

Hog sent two bursts from his rifle into it, streaking its sides, back and swishing tail with red tears. The crawler screeched and flailed to one side, rolling on its back and convulsing before finding its footing again. Gone was the concrete grey of its skin: instead, its scaly body returned to the oily green and black of the flaked scales marking their passage.

It charged again, body shaking and heaving in a mad rage. Hog's rifle clicked dry. Wernher's scoped S&W Model 29 cleared the holster, the barrel rising.

Hog's side exploded in pain. The world cartwheeled and he hit the ground hard. Upside down, he saw the crawler pounce on Wernher, heard the barking reports of the revolver. Then he was being dragged on the concrete and across the rails by the waxy tongue of the other crawler, once more perched on the edge of the bridge.

He kicked and struggled, but the gummy end on the tongue stuck to his side didn't come off. The crawler's maws opened wider, eager to feast, to clamp on him and drag him under, when Hog's feet found purchase on the side of the rail. Huffing in effort and near-panic, he planted the soles of his boots against the metal and pushed with all of his strength, straining his leg muscles to the limit.

The crawler kept pulling, undaunted. Against the monstrous strength of the beast, he realized he couldn't last long. Probing blindly, unable to tear his eyes away from those waiting jaws, Hog felt for the ripper and found the handle on the second try, nearly tearing off the sawn pocket in drawing it.

The chainsaw blade whirred to life and the crawler decided to stop toying with its prey. The pulling ceased; the beast heaved its entire body, twice as long as Hog was tall, onto the bridge proper instead, and charged at him.

Hog revved up the blade and brought it down on the tongue, pushing and grinding. He yelled as the crawler's hungry, triumphant _bloops_ morphed into an ear-splitting screech. The creature stumbled and writhed to a sudden halt, twisting and jerking its head this way and that. The blade bucked in Hog's hand as it carved deeper and deeper through the thick muscle bundles, showering his face with blood.

The ripper completed its grisly work in seconds and inertia nearly brought it down on Hog's own leg. Blinking against the blood in his eyes, where the scarf didn't protect him, he switched it off and went for the Desert Eagle at his hip. The maimed appendage flopped bonelessly and writhed like a snake, spurting blood in wide arcs, then disappeared into the crawler's mouth.

Before Hog's shaking hand could bring the gun to bear, the crawler's webbed feet left the concrete with a sucking _plop_ that propelled the creature at Hog in a running leap.

He fired one shot into those gaping maws, but he never saw if it struck or not. A huge blur of growling fur and bared teeth slammed into the crawler like a cannonball, knocking it off course. Hog rolled away in reflex as an ungodly racket of tumbling bodies and snapping jaws exploded around the fighting creatures.

The dog emerged on top of the much larger amphibian, in precarious balance on the bridge's edge. Its canine maw clamped down on the crawler's slimy neck, while its razor claws ravaged the creature's side and face. One bulbous black eye was ruptured and started spurting blood and gel. The crawler screeched in agony, but the dog jerked his head left and right, rending and tearing, sides heaving with effort and flexing muscles, fur already soaked in blood. His slit-thin pupils found Hog for a moment, then flashed in pain as one of the crawler's paws left a deep, bloody imprint on its side.

The dog didn't let go, only worried into the crawler's flesh harder with a low growl. Hog climbed to a crouch, tasting blood in his mouth he wasn't sure was there, and picked up his gun, levelling it at the tangle of bodies. One .357 bullet after another found its way into the crawler's body. He stood, and took a step forward. His aim, despite the trembling from just moments before, was steady now, his mind focused, even under the sickening squelches of canine onslaught.

The crawler's body convulsed one last time, sending its tail swiping in a large, deadly arc. Hog threw himself back, narrowly avoiding the bone-breaking impact. When he looked up again, both animals were gone. A moment later, an almighty _splash_ resounded several meters below, sending droplets of river water higher than the bridge's edge.

Blinking away the lingering after-image, Hog approached the edge cautiously, skirting around the large amount of crawler fluids pooling on the concrete. Wide ripples and lots of diluted crimson disturbed the creek's surface, but as the seconds trickled into a minute, nothing floated to the surface.

Struck by a bout of inspiration, Hog jogged to the other edge of the bridge, scanning the water and the banks both. He squinted his eyes, searching for streaks of grey fur or signs of recent passage in the exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, and boughs motionless in the last light of the day.

He found nothing.

After a near minute of fruitless effort, Hog forced his brain to reboot around the ebbing flow of adrenaline. That was the same dog he spotted trailing the barge on the way to The Crossing. The eyes were too peculiar by half for that not to be the case. Or maybe it was a common mutation, like all brahmins had two heads? Was it the same dog that mauled the ghouls at Planky Town? Hog was inclined to think yes, but at the same time –

"A fucking hand would be appreciated, if you're done sightseeing. Crawlers make their nest by the water. We're on their hunting grounds."

Hog nearly beat himself over the head for forgetting about Wernher and the other crawler. The latter was thankfully dead, but still twitching, courtesy of the massive holes blasted through its skull and eye by Wernher's hand-cannon. The ex-slave in question glared upside down at Hog, most of his body pinned to the bridge by the dead amphibian bleeding the last of its blood on him.

After a moment, Hog put all thoughts of mutated dogs out of his mind and returned to more pressing matters. Night was falling fast and the questionable safety of The Meat Park was still some three miles away through crawler territory.

As he walked up to the pinned one-eyed man, the brief, random, unbidden fantasy that swapped Wernher with the only other cyclops-man he knew, Butch goddamn DeLoria, evaporated as the ribs on his left side flared up in belated pain, no longer suppressed by the adrenaline.

Still, even as a quick check showed the skin tender to the touch and at least one rib broken under the armor, the pain was manageable with a safe amount of gritted teeth and not-too-deep breaths. By all means, he should be in agony, and yet, as he helped Wernher wriggle out from under the dead crawler and gathered his gear strewn about the bridge, all he felt at most was an annoying and slightly painful pressure, enough to elicit a few hisses as he heaved part of the carcass of the other man. By the time Wernher had rinsed some of the blood off him, the pain had already lessened to an annoying itch.

 _'What the hell is_ _happening to me? Am I still mutating?'_ Just that morning, he'd been quite cocky in defending his mutation from Star Paladin Lyons. Now… now, he wasn't so sure anymore.

0 * TTL * 0

What started as a slight swelling of the older man's ankle worsened before the first mile was behind them. The appendage flared in pain every time Wernher put some weight onto it, burning an angry red. Despite Wernher's stubbornness, it wasn't long before he was forced to lean on Hog and hop more than walk the rest of the way, much to both men's discomfort.

The darkness encroached on them, leaving only the tenuous moonlight to glimmer on the rails and guide their path. The forest, the barren husk that it was, seemed to come alive when the sun finally disappeared behind the mountains. It whispered and hissed, a dark, endless abyss beckoning to Hog, calling him to walk into its depths and disappear in its motherly womb.

As the terrain began to oh-so-gently slope upwards, Hog's sense of time stretched with the echo of every grain and pebble dislodged by their hobbling and shuffling along the rails. One moment, he felt like he was moving through a picture, still and unchanging and damaged by the wear of time. The next, a slightly darker shadow would catch his eye, or a gust of wind would blow through the brambles. At times, the night would grow darker for the shortest heartbeat as some carrion eater, waiting to feast on his dead body, flew before the moon on wide wings.

During their first pause to let Wernher catch his breath, Hog ignored the ex-slave's scowl and fished out his Pip-Boy.

The short cone of light provided by the wrist-mounted device kept oscillating left and right as they continued. Hog twisted his wrist this way or that every few seconds, answering the silent nagging in his mind that insisted danger was creeping up on them just outside the tremulously lit area whenever a trunk creaked, or a lick of wind whistled through the dry brambles.

Sometimes, the light would catch the button-like eyes of some animal or illuminate a shape lurking in the shadows and quiet. All would flee or disappear, vanishing into thin air within moments, often without any echo or trace in the undergrowth. As the hours passed, Hog found himself questioning his own eyes.

"Would you fucking stop that?" Wernher hissed after Hog nearly opened fire on an uprooted bush the wind had blown across the rails. "You're making my eyes bleed. And I can't fucking run with this leg, so switch that thing off before half the forest is on us!"

Hog eventually complied and removed his Pip-Boy, but only when distant lights eased the crushing blanket of the night from around their shoulder into grey-blue blurriness and obfuscated contours.

The wall-mounted floodlights converged on the hobbling duo like vultures on a corpse as they followed the rails through the no man's land of old Martinsburg. Hog squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden onslaught of blinding light, raising a protective hand over his face. Before the glaring white made his head spin, he spotted the outline of a portcullis-like gate over the rails, and guards patrolling on catwalks and ramps several feet from the ground, behind thick walls made of metal scrap and spikes welded on heaped cars filled with debris and masonry. Barbed wire was everywhere, criss-crossing the walls and spanning their length as far as he'd been able to see, which wasn't admittedly much.

"Who's there?!" A disembodied voice challenged from above. "Speak, or I'll pop one into you and leave you to the crawlers!"

"Mercs!" Wernher barked back, making Hog freeze there and then. "We bring news from The Crossing. Let us in and go wake up the Supervisor, he knows me."

"Does he now? 'Cause I've never seen your mug before, and sure as hell, I'd remember something this ugly." Sparse laughter echoed that. Hog squinted, trying to see past the floodlights, give the voices a face or even just a position. It was a study in wasted effort and weeping eyes.

"The Supervisor's sleeping. Had one of his long plays tonight." Hog was quite sure the disembodied guard was sneering. "Went to shit like all the others, so we've got a new Apollo. Sure as hell I won't wake him up now. You know what? Hang around and come back tomorrow." More laughter. Hog's stomach plunged. He gritted his teeth and made to speak, but Wernher pinched him on the shoulder.

"Fucking hilarious. Listen up, shitstain! The Regs and the Brotherhood have torched The Crossing, freed all the scabs, and even took apart the goddamned train. And there's more. Go wake up the goddamned Supervisor!"

The laughter petered out. "That's bullshit. The Brotherhood never leaves D.C. Everyone knows that."

"They did this time and stormed the place like it was the Scourge, Act Two. The spud and I saw them with these fucking eyes. Now let us in, or you wanna be the one to tell the Supervisor you turned away the information when I'm proven right?"

"Fucking hell, " the sentinel muttered. "Fuck! Alright, alright, I'm letting you two in, but no funny business."

"And point those fucking lights away!"

Hog blinked owlishly as the blinding curtains of white parted, revealing the walls of The Meat Park and a good half-dozen assorted guns levelled in his general direction. Wernher pointed to a section of the wall a few meters off the railway and urged Hog to get there before the wildlife tried to take another good bite of them.

"Remember," he added in a pained hiss, "With the grunts, walk, talk, and look like you have more right to do what you're doing and go where you're going than they have to breathe your air. You get challenged? Make an example or two, but don't kill them. Strength is just about the most valuable currency from here on out."

Hog nodded along, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other in time with Wernher's hobbling. Carrying some eighty-kilograms of limping ex-slave for over three miles had left him longing for anything resembling a bed to crash on.

However, he knew the night, despite midnight fast-approaching, was far from over.

With a rattle of chains, bolts, and the rusty creak of a bar being unlatched, a section of the wall large enough for two men abreast to squeeze through swung inwards. A blue-haired man with a scowl hot enough to set a tree on fire poked through, urging them inside.

On the other side of a short tunnel, a quartet more of reassuring types awaited. They wore a mix of sports jackets, military fatigues, and leather armor over well-worn, stained clothes, with elaborate and colorful hairstyles or beards sharing only in a pungent lack of cleaning. Most had shaved bits and patches off, arranging the rest with some weird combination of long-expired gel and animal grease, by the smell.

After a cursory glance, Hog dismissed the queer appearance and focused only on the guns they carried. All of them had the same model; it reminded Hog of the HKG3 Simms had him train with in Megaton, only newer and quite more compact. The people who designed it had opted to swap out the stock for a scope and a long silencer. And, of course, a fresh coat of black and grey. Maybe for camo, or maybe just because it was cool and edgy. From what the other Regs had to say about raiders and slavers, probably both.

"Guns and gear there in a pile, mercs," Blue-Hair – from his voice, the same guy who'd challenged their entrance from the walls – commanded, tilting his head towards an empty locker lying on the ground at his feet. "Entrance fee."

"Right, as if," Wernher spat back, "Knock that shit off."

"The old man's got a bit of a hearing problem? Gear off. Now, fuckface. The Supervisor won't care if you see him with a few busted bones and baby-naked, as long as you wag your tongue."

Hog felt a sudden stab of all-too-familiar distaste and annoyance at this Supervisor figure. He glanced at Wernher, replaying his recent words in his head, then shrugged off the ex-slave, who hobbled in place and turned to lean on the wall with a light scowl.

"That's a pretty sweet blade," another member of the welcome committee said. Hog walked up to the crate and slung the rifle's strap from his shoulder. "I call dibs."

"Like hell you do, Dobson. Here, rifle in here, and take off that scarf next. I wanna see your ugly mug."

Hog let the rifle clatter into the locker. The moment the guard's eyes followed it, Hog punched him in the throat. Blue-Hair sputtered and staggered back, eyes wide, knees wobbling, hands clasping at his throat. Hog skipped over the locker, kneed him hard in the belly, then hooked two fingers into his nose and pulled his head back. He maneuvered Blue-Hair's sagging form between himself and the other four, then put the ripper's blade on his collarbone, chainsaw teeth brushing against dark skin.

The quarter's rifles remained angled down. One of the guards had taken a couple steps forward, but stopped when another placed a hand on his shoulder and shook her head, smirking all the while. That rotten, gaping smirk turned to Hog, who almost shivered in repulsion despite the half-choking man in his grasp.

"Not groovy, Scarfy. Not groovy at all. But maybe this time Mr. Asshole McMoron will learn the lesson, huh?" The rest of the quartet chuckled and snorted, even the eager one, then Rot-Teeth moved away from the group, dark pink dreads bobbing as she shook her head in amusement.

Wernher pushed away from the wall and tilted his head after the woman. His scowl was gone, replaced by approval almost scathing in its intensity.

"Go on," another of the guards said as he came up, "if you've got that kind of news for the Supervisor, better burn that wound asap and drown the pain at the Vet's." He smirked, and slapped Hog on the back. "Or maybe the Sup will make you his new Apollo, and I'll get that knife of yours."

Hog glared, then let Blue-Hair McMoron topple on his face to the other guard's laughter. Crouching, he slung his rifle back on as the man gave his downed comrade a swift kick to the ribs, before flashing Hog a complicit smile that made him keenly miss the Vault for a brief moment.

"Keep breathing," Hog muttered as he stepped over the gurgling man, "you'll be fine."

The postern swung shut behind him, and the echo followed Hog as he ventured into The Meat Park

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: So yeah, I've bought the English translation of the Heart of Darkness - because I'm Italian, so I never read the English version before. Shocker, I know. Because ripping off Orwell for Vault 101 wasn't enough, no sir. And I'm not nearly done with 1984 either, though that brand of pain will come back later on._

 _An All-Hog chapter. Been a while since one of those. On the crawlers, a bit of research revealed that the Appalachians are the natural habitat of a LOT of salamander species. That was simply too good to pass up._

 _The axe i_ _s firmly stuck in canon's skull, so at this point,_ _all that's left to do is keep pushing until it bisects the entire body and comes out on the other side. Gross._

 _Thank you for reading. Don't forget to leave a **review** and hit the fav/follow button if you like where this is going. __Constructive criticism and feedback always brighten up my day._


	18. Foundry III: A Dip in the Water

**Foundry III: A Dip in the Water**

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **DmCrebel25, Paladin Bailey, The Desert Dancer, PartyPat22**_ _,_ _ **Master Doom Maker (x2), Alternative NonFiction, Paladin Delta, Aegon Blacksteel**_ _and_ _ **colstrent (x4)**_ _for their reviews, critiques, and feedback. TTL has officially entered the Top 50 Fallout Stories as well. Two out of two, hell yeah!_

 _I don't know why, but I rather enjoy writing Wernher, especially his dialogue. Not as much as House, nor as easily, but I think it's a close second for now. The relative talkativeness of this chapter stems, in part, from that._

0 = TTL = 0

The crawler's skull dominated the far wall, a work of bony white and shadows playing along the ridges. It was wide, belonging to a specimen larger than the ones Hog and Wernher killed on the bridge, with empty sockets the size of Hog's head, where darkness pooled over hints of the flayed plaster. The massive hole puncturing the skull was like a third eye, the center of a web of jagged cracks and missing chips.

It was the first thing Hog noticed as he was ushered into the Supervisor's office. Once upon a time, the room had been Martinsburg Police Chief's, judging by the oxidized bronze placard hanging outside. Nothing belonging to the previous owner remained beyond that, plunging the room in complete anonymity. And so, as the seconds ticked into minutes, Hog found himself staring up at the only object of interest in the room. A quiet shiver tiptoed up and down his spine, but it beat glancing for answers at the suddenly tight-lipped Wernher, or pacing a canyon into the pavement and risk plummeting downstairs. Time hadn't been gentle with the Police Department, and the new occupants seemed to have little interest in redecorating beyond painting graffiti and hanging skulls.

By the tenth minute mark, he was tracing imaginary lines along the dips and curves of the skull. Hog realized he'd started to nod off only when he started at the door opening and then closing.

The Supervisor struck Hog not for his magnetic presence or revolting countenance, rather for a complete, utter lack of both. At first, his brain didn't connect the plain, average, and rather sleepy-looking man in ruffled clothes with the lofty title. Only when he kicked back on the desk that once belonged to Martinsburg's Police Chief, did the pieces click.

A common man, of average height and build, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a sun-beaten complexion. No disfiguring scars to add gravitas or experience to his plain face like Wernher had. No riveting sharpness of features, rather a mix of annoyance and boredom over a bedrock of apathy. Hog was sure he'd have forgotten his face in no time, should he have met him on any other occasion.

His only distinguishable feature, if it could be deemed so, was a certain coldness in his eyes. They reminded Hog of Almodovar's as he rattled out his sentence after the incident in the Vault's cafeteria and later the same night in the pokey.

The Supervisor yawned. He glanced at Hog, tilting his head to the side, and made a vague circling sign with his index.

"Off with that. I don't speak business with a pair of eyes." Hog held his gaze, biting down on a sneaking sense of uneasiness that made the skin of his arms crawl, then slowly complied when Wernher sighed. The Supervisor's head lolled around to zero on Wernher. "So, how much of the whole 'Tin cans and cowboys overran The Crossing, threw Eulogy's people and the crew in the river, and took the train apart' is true?"

Wernher checked that the door was closed. The Supervisor waved the pesky concern away, while his other hand disappeared under the desk, rummaging loudly.

"Every single word. The spud and I were there, in the thick of it."

A clean-ish tumbler, cracked at the bottom, rattled and settled on the desk surface. The Supervisor poured himself some foul-smelling, clear liquid – definitely alcohol – from a bottle that disappeared inside the desk a moment later. He picked up the glass and rolled it a couple of times in his palm, eyes lost in the sloshing liquid.

"So, it begins." He chugged back the drink with barely a grimace, burped, and then produced a notepad with the stub of a pencil stuck in the loops. "Alright. Give me some details. Numbers, gear, tactics, things to radio back to the God Lord."

Wernher's report was brief and vague enough to match their cover story as passing mercs. Hog noticed he made no mention of the super mutants at any time, and the ex-slave handwaved away the Brotherhood's involvement as 'sticking one up to Lord Ashur, for old times' sake'. The Supervisor puffed his cheek and popped a chuckle at that.

"This is going to stir the bloodbug nest real good, Wernher," he said at last. His lips turned up in the faintest of smiles for the briefest of moments, before more words tumbling out wiped it away. "One train and a whole station, busted like that? Ashur'll unleash the attack dogs." He tilted his head to the side, peering closer at the ex-slave. "They might recognize you, even after your ten-rounds-with-a-deathclaw makeover."

"That's the point. If Ashur looks south, he won't see the shiv until it's slipped into his gut." With cautious movements, Wernher lit himself a cigarette, then passed another to Hog. "As for my ugly face, they'll expect either me alone, or an armed group. A couple of lowly mercs searching for work will slip under the radar long enough."

"You say that. It's still better if you and your- hey, what's your name? Hogarth?" The Supervisor arched an eyebrow, then blew a chuckle. "No account for momma's taste, I guess. Anyway, it's better if your names don't spread around the Park at all. You told the guards?"

Hog bit hard on his cig, eyes narrowed and flitting between the Supervisor and Wernher. There was something off going on, between slaver and former slave. He'd figured Wernher would bullshit their way past the Supervisor with half-truths, maybe even convince him to send them further north on the next train to report directly to this Lord Ashur. Yet Wernher was getting all chummy with the scum, leaning back in his chair and smoking, as relaxed as Hog figured a man in pain could be.

No, it wasn't a work in progress. They clearly already knew each other and had struck some sort of deal on whose back Wernher was comfortably riding. The chilly shiver wrapped around his spine froze to arctic temperatures.

"Don't antagonize him. The spud already introduced one of your half-wits to his fist," Wernher continued, unperturbed by Hog's sudden stillness.

"Charming. More meat for the Circle." The Supervisor shrugged and there it was again, that ghost of a smile, fast as a bullet to peer out and vanish again. "Just lie low, and wait for the next ride north. And I'll tell you what, from here on out, you'll be Bud and Terence. You're Terence," he specified, nailing Hog with a pointing index. "No family name, just two more specks of dirt in the background. I don't have a dog tag for you; as of late Ashur's grown cagey with the prints. Still, I'll put you on the next train back to The Pitt. Throw in some uniforms, too. From there, however, it's on you."

The Supervisor stood and walked around the desk on Wernher's side. "Don't let me down, _Bud_. I'm sticking my neck out for your little insurrection."

"Because you can't help your heart of gold, can you?"

The Supervisor rolled his eyes. "You're a born comedian. Really, I should make you my new Apollo. People would pay to see you." He shook his head and pocketed the notepad. "Just try to mingle and kick back. Not much to do around here, other than drink and fight." He perked up then, snapping his fingers. "You know what? You should stop by the rehearsals, sometimes. The new Apollo's going Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_. I don't know if he's smart or dumb as a brick: that's one of my favorites."

0 * TTL * 0

Hog kept his silence throughout the brief, hobbling walk from the Police Department to some old tourist attraction by the name of the Belle Boyd House, where the Supervisor said they'd probably find some lodgings. Probably, that was, because it turned out the raiders and slavers that called The Meat Park home had no official barracks, rather camped out anywhere that struck their fancy within the three or so city blocks that made up the trading post within the perimeter walls. But the Belle Boyd House was as good a bet as any.

That night, the erstwhile occupants had opted to relocate, leaving the brick house up for takeover. Hog dropped Wernher on a distinctly anachronistic couch, the sticky, worn leather patched over multiple times were it wasn't simply torn beyond repair. He tuned out the ex-slave's grunts of pain at the manhandling as he walked out again without a word, slamming the door behind him.

Purposefully ignoring the clamor, lights, and crashing sounds rolling out from the red brick building right in front of the darkened Police Department, he traced his steps back to a public ice box cooler he'd spotted on the way in. It was half-concealed behind one of those Pulowski Public Shelters and painted several layers of conflicting graffiti out-threatening each other in spotty English. To his surprise, someone had hooked up the thing to the grid that powered the floodlights and the odd street lamp around the area.

To his continued surprise, he found quite a lot of ice, together with mole-rat chops and maybe-brahmin steaks stuffed in neat piles there.

Once back, he found Wernher still slumped on the couch. He'd taken his boots off and was grimacing as he twisted around to try and get a better look at his foot. Under the light of a lantern he'd fished out from God knew where, Hog saw he'd plenty of reason to. His injured ankle was nearly double the size of the other one, the skin swollen, stretched, and red. Walking on it had worsened the damage from the fall on the bridge.

Without a word, Hog piled up some cushions at the foot of the couch and propped Wernher's leg up, deaf to his traveling companion's woes.

"You've got a sprained ankle," he informed him. "It doesn't look good. If you're lucky, the ligaments are just stretched, and not torn." He tossed the ice packet, bundled into a spare shirt, on his chest, then started rummaging inside his backpack for bandages. "Keep the ice on the swelling. Twenty minutes tops at any time, or you'll get frostbite."

"No offense, spud, but I like my nurses better with a rack. And less of a beard."

Hog's fists clenched unseen in the depths of the pack. For a brief moment, he relished the mental image and sound of Wernher's nose flattening under his knuckles.

"Shut up."

Wernher's single eye blinked once at that, then narrowed to a slit. Hog went to the door and barred it, then he checked the broken windows, bolted the odd shutter, and pulled close what excuse for curtains was still there. His efforts confined the antique living room to the single, wavering light of the lantern, but Hog would take it over a modicum of security and peace of mind, hard as the latter was to achieve.

The wooden floorboard creaked and cracked under his heavy steps as he circled the room and dragged a small, octagonal table closer to the couch, before placing all of his weapons on top. Without meeting the other man's eye, Hog sat down on a box and started cleaning the ripper's teeth from congealed crawler's blood with an oily rag that left his fingers sludgy.

By the time the twenty minutes were up, he'd disassembled his assault rifle as well and was getting started on piecing it back together.

"What was that, back there?" He eventually demanded, after he cleaned his hands with some slightly irradiated water, sterilized them with some bourbon, and started wrapping a tight bandage around Wernher's ankle, to prevent more strain on the damaged joint.

Wernher rolled his eye. "Don't blow a fuse on me now, spud."

Hog pulled on the bandage with more force than recommended by the first aid manual he'd read over and over years before. Wernher hissed, lips pulling back in the beginning of a snarl. "Careful, you idiot!"

"Answer me," Hog spat. "You made a deal with that slaver?!"

"Any better ideas to get in?" Wernher snapped back, pulling himself up, elbows on the couch armrest. "I'm putting my life on the line to take down Ashur and free my people, you fool. If to get there I have to compromise with the lesser evil, well sign me the fuck up!"

Hog dropped his work, staring back at Wernher as if he'd just grown another head there and then. "He's a slaver! He's the enemy!"

"The Regs rules ceased to mean shit the moment we crossed the river. There ain't no enemies here, spud. Only people you can't strike a compromise with," Wernher said. "And this guy, he's an ally for now, or as close as it gets. He wants to see Ashur ousted, and so do I, so I'm using him. To you, well, he's the ticket into the Pitt and to your girl."

Hog's nostrils flared. Wernher's medication forgotten, he shot up to his feet and started pacing.

"She's not – that's not the point," he ground out. "Say you topple Ashur with the help of this Supervisor. What next? What can you offer him, other than more slaves and more power? The melody's changed, but the song remains the same."

Wernher dragged a hand across his face and sighed in exasperation. He tossed his head back on the armrest and stared at the ceiling.

"Look, spud. Everything ain't black and white like the Regs taught you. You gotta learn to compromise. Sometimes, you gotta make friends out of enemies to deep-six the big bad. You keep going mano a mano with everyone who looks at you crossly, you ain't gonna get nothing done. That said," he added, turning his single eye to Hog, "there's friends, and then there's _friends_. People like the Supervisor, you always wanna keep in the first category. You following?"

Hog nodded slowly, limbs suddenly stiff. Carefully, he asked, "And who are the friends in the other category?"

"Other people. Powerful people. People who'll see the slaves more than meat sacks to work into an early expiration date." Wernher rummaged into one of the pockets of his vest, took out a pack of cigarettes, and bit into the butt of one, before tossing the crumpled pack at Hogarth with a grunt when he motioned for one. "You are too, spud. That kind of friend. But to get to the sunshine and rainbows, you gotta walk through the sludge first. Or, in this case, swallow your morals and exploit a man's frustration to your own benefit."

"The Supervisor."

"Strike in one, spud," Wernher grinned around his cigarette. "Here, let Uncle Wernher paint you a picture. The Meat Park is the ass end of nowhere, by Pitt's standards. No real action against tribals like the other stations in Penny and Ohio, or even a chance to get bloody with'em Blue Knots bastards north of here in the mountains." Wernher spat on the ground. "Mean horse-fuckers, those. Nearly took my scalp once.

Anyway, there's no place for a good smash and grab: land's dead and empty for miles and miles. Only real thing to do is count the slaves on the cargos going up the railway, get shitfaced, fuck the same two or three pox-ridden bitches until your dick falls off, and then get eaten by a crawler on a bad day." The ex-slave guffawed at Hog's grimace of disgust. "Told you it'd be a pretty picture. None of that makes for a happy crowd, and the crowd here can't even be that small, or it'd be a weak cog in the machine. A target. So God Lord Ashur needs the place up and running, and what he does?"

Hog pulled on his cigarette to buy himself some time and turn Wernher's words around in his head. "He puts someone like the Supervisor in charge. Someone to keep the place quiet and running."

"And here I thought I hauled your ass out of the fire for the brawns alone." Hog sent a meaningful glance at Wernher's half-bandaged ankle, and the older man snorted. "The guy has no particular résumé, he ain't meaner than your average fucker, he doesn't look that impressive either. But he's got enough working brains to keep the place running, and the only thing he inspires is uneasiness. I know you felt that in the office. "

At Hog's begrudging nod, Wernher chuckled. "That's the guy you want running a scumpit like this: a small fry, one who'll stay loyal, 'cause he doesn't have the shit needed to get a crew of his own together and challenge the God Lord for his seat in Haven. In a way, he's a slave too: what little he has, he owes it all to Ashur. Without a master to prop him up, he'd be just another face in the crowd." Wernher took a long pull from his cigarette and smiled his crooked smile.

"That is, until someone like me comes along, and makes him realize that what he has is just a small pile of brahmin shit he'll choke on one day, that he's the laughing stock of every raider from here to Ronto. All it takes then is a promise, the balls to back it up, and at that point, he's your fiddle to tune and play. From Ashur's to my own personal slave. Ironic, isn't it?"

0 * TTL * 0

The next morning, billows of black-grey smoke, the rhythmic chug of an engine, and the metallic rumble of wheels on rails announced the train from The Pitt long before it pulled up with a screech of brakes at The Meat Park's station. Hog watched from the first floor of the Belle Boyd House as a crowd busied around the distant side of the locomotive to refill the water tank within the tender with river-water. It was too far to distinguish them, however.

He got more than a good look on the train crew, however. The group sent to retake The Crossing stood out from the rest of the rabble Hog had met and shot so far. Combat armor and thick, overlapping metal suits were the norm, not the exception. The custom HKG3s were the centerpiece of everyone's standard loadout, but Hog spotted several large caliber LMGs, as well as shotguns, sniper rifles, and even the odd anti-tank ordinance in the shape of M72 LAWs and anti-materiel rifles.

When he later told Wernher as much, since the ex-slave was still confined to rest on Hog's orders, the man snorted. "Gotta hope the Brotherhood picked up their tents and marched back, or it's gonna be a slaughter on both sides."

The leader of the expedition was a large man encased in spiked metallic armor with a mostly shaved head. He walked just past the House to speak with the Supervisor, then back the same way, before boarding the train again. With a whistle of steam, the locomotive rumbled into motion and crossed through the portcullis-like gate, before picking up speed. Soon, even the smoke trail faded south-east.

Time, in the next couple days, slowed down to a crawl. Shacking up with Wernher soon began to fray Hog's nerves. The ex-slave was rather frustrated and bitchy about his condition, and spared no opportunity to unload on Hog when the pain increased. He complained about his leg, about the couch being lumpy and a veritable torture, even about Hog depleting his cigarettes. At some point during the second day, Hog simply picked him up in a fireman carry and dumped him in one of the bedrooms on the second floor, before he pulled on his scarf and stormed out of the house to grab something to assuage his growling stomach with something more than preserved food a couple centuries old or cold trail rations.

The Meat Park may have been nearly three blocks of pre-War town, but most of those were dilapidated ruins and empty husks, some even taken down or apart to erect the perimeter walls in the first place. The daily chow, he learned from the first raider he decided to approach, was served at the Roundhouse, on the western side of the rails and up against the wall.

It was there he saw the slaves.

The sight froze him on the spot as much as his belated realization that he'd mentally referred to the collared, beleaguered people not as prisoners, or workers, but _slaves_. His hunger was extinguished under the ensuing bout of nausea.

There was only a small number of them, far from the mental landscape of streets choked with writhing bodies produced by his imagination, courtesy of Wernher's stories about The Pitt. They walked back and forth between the Roundhouse and a nearby building, carrying large pots of steaming something into the former and the empty ones back to the latter, always in duos. Their garb was minimalistic, rags and torn, formless clothes covering their modesty and little else, while a leather harness was wrapped around their sides, then climbed up across their chest to end in a collar of leather and metal closed around their neck.

It forced them into a slightly hunched stance, their shaved heads bowed low just so to accommodate to the pull. They walked barefoot, and their bodies were lined by thin healing scabs old and newer; their arms were especially afflicted, as if they'd used them to protect their faces.

Hog walked closer, almost into the path of a duo, a boy and a girl carrying an empty pot. The girl shrunk away a step or two, but couldn't go further as the boy pulled on the pot they shared. With a cracking strain of leather and muscles, the boy's head lifted just enough to look at Hog's bare neck.

He was young, younger than Hog, but his sunken features and sun-beaten skin added a couple of decades to his visage. He licked his cracked lips, and spoke with an even more cracked voice Hog barely heard over the din filtering out of the Roundhouse.

"Lunch is served, boss. Can I – can we do something for you?"

The mix of disgust, resentment, and resignation in the boy's voice brought Hog back to two years of mornings in front of a cracked mirror, down in the bowels of Vault 101. His hand went to the gun at his hip and his eyes to the Roundhouse, as he mentally started to count how many people would be there, and how many bullets it would take – both shot and taken – to kill them all.

It was the uncontrollable flinch of the two slaves that vanquished that blood-soaked fantasy. Hog blinked, and for a moment the girl's tear-streaked face wasn't a nameless wastelander's, but young Monica Kendall's, while the boy's assumed the features of that brat Francis Gorobitz's, the two kids Stanley suffered a heart attack for in his haste to take away from the giant ants.

They were all up there with Amata, in The Pitt, in the same or worse conditions than the two teens cowering away from him. And if he fucked up now, they were doomed to years of slavery, before heaped fatigue and abuse finally killed them. If they were lucky.

Swallowing his ramping up anger, Hog turned tail and marched away from the Roundhouse. The streets and parking lots were almost deserted, save for the odd raider slumping about in a pervading haze, or sauntering in the direction of the Roundhouse themselves. His feet carried him past the Belle Boyd House and he took a left in the main avenue. On his right, the Police Department looked dead to the world, while on the left, a small crowd loitered underneath an unlit neon sign spelling _VFW_ over an unmoving clock, sipping moonshine and cracking jokes. Overhead, pieces of fabric and faded sheets hang from clotheslines, offering isles of reprieve from the midday sunlight and the vague hint of a colorful touch to the windblown desolation.

Feeling eyes on him, Hog listened to his stomach awaken again despite lingering nausea. His eyes roamed over the red-brick buildings, painted a vulgar rainbow of graffiti by some rather ungifted hands, and fell on the same ice cooler he'd borrowed from the night before.

"Hey, scarf-face! Newbie!" a voice called out to him as he lifted the lid and started rummaging inside for some meat. Sporadic chuckles echoed the weak joke. "You in any hurry to get pulped in the Circle? That's Reddup's stash."

Hog flipped them the bird. "I'm at the Belle Boyd House."

"Ah, an attitude! You'll make for good bets! Good luck, you'll need it."

Hog put the warning out of his mind as fast as it registered. For the next hour or so, the only concern he allowed his mind to consider was cooking the two steaks he'd taken over a hastily-put-together cooking fire. He bartered one to Wernher for some more cigarettes, leveraging on the unspoken reality that nobody else, save maybe the Supervisor, would care if he starved or not. Then he almost choked to death when Wernher actually complimented him for cooking _crawler_ steak just how he liked it.

All in all, it wasn't nearly good enough to justify waking up with a knife poking his genitalia, nor the hand clamping around his throat and crushing his windpipe. Hog's hands sailed up as his eyes snapped open, but he was rewarded by a worrying increase of pointy pressure to his junk. A single thought made him freeze, one fist halfway from impacting with his aggressor's elbows.

Would it heal like the rest?

"Don't squeal." Fetid breath slapped on his face with every word. In the darkness, Hog could only see the whites of two eyes boring down on him, and the foreboding glint of the blade. "You and I have an appointment at the Circle for some getting even."

The grip around his throat loosened enough to allow Hog to speak.

"Are you Reddup?"

"The one and fuckin' only, trash." Steps and light approached from outside the living room, where Hog had tucked in for the night. There were more people inside the house. And they'd all managed to unbar the door and sneak up on him without waking him up. _'Fuck. Me.'_ "And you've stolen my meat. Nobody steals a hunter's prey, nor his prize."

"Take that knife away, and we settle it here and now."

The knife did indeed come away, but by then, another slaver had walked in with a lantern, and Hog found himself staring down the steel tip of a crossbow bolt aimed square at his chest. The light also revealed his aggressor to be a large, red-skinned man, though how much was dirt and how much natural, Hog couldn't tell in the poor light. The smell alone gave him ideas, though.

Reddup laughed. It was like metal claws were dragged across a blackboard. It shook his entire body, making the necklace of tiny, baby crawler skulls rattle against his armor.

"Oh, don't tempt me, trash. Up to me, and you'd be dangling by your own guts." His eyes roamed over Hog, sizing him up. "But the Supervisor has rules, and I'm gonna make a pretty cap out of you. It's been a while since there's been new meat at the Circle."

The Circle, as it turned out, was the backcourt of the Veteran of Foreign Wars pub, or just the Vet's, just in front of the Police Department. It acted as a fighting pit, around which the Supervisor's system of crime punishment and reward for The Meat Park revolved in its entirety, as well as where large sums of caps, chems, and other valuable stuff exchanged hands with every match.

Hog and Wernher were marched into the Vet's at crossbow point by Reddup and his gaggle of hunters. From what he gathered by eavesdropping on their conversation, or just their taunts, the weapons weren't used as much to hunt crawlers and wildlife, but as a mark of belonging to Reddup's hunters, and the occasional ranged crucifixion when the Supervisor would allow them. In the short distance between the Belle Boyd House and the Vet's, that particular fate had been dangled before Hog's eyes at least half a dozen times, beating the hanging by guts solidly.

Into the bar and past rows of diner seats and tables that reminded Hog of the Vault cafeteria, the two of them were paraded around as advertisement for a new fight. Most of the town – and to Hog's disgust, a number of slaves servings as waiters or entertainers – was crowded within the establishment; Reddup's entry and announcement went through the audience like ripples, then cheers and groans alike exploded. The raiders streamed through the backdoor or out and around the building, dragging the two of them along.

Pallets and boards had been nailed together and to posts to form a small ring on the tarmac, though it was already difficult to make out anything but the skulls surmounting the poles with how many people were already hounding the area, eager for their circenses. Once everyone had spotted them and there was no chance to just turn tail and run away, Reddup and his posse disappeared into the mob after flashing Hog a cruel grin.

Wernher immediately grabbed Hog by the arm in a steel vice. At least they'd allowed him to grab a cane for supporting his bad leg. Hog expected a reprimand for stealing, a good telling off intermixed with curses. The ex-slave was all business, instead.

"Clean your ears out and listen," he hissed. "This will be a slugging match, until either of you gives in, faints, or dies. You win, we walk scot-free. You lose and survive it, Reddup will have proven he's every right to nail both of us to a board with those damn crossbows. And the Supervisor won't be able to cover, since these are his own rules in the first place."

' _Things are suddenly looking up.'_ "Remember me? The guy with the weird genetics?"

"Stop being a smartass, Hogarth." Wernher's voice lowered to a growl. "Reddup was a slave, and he won his freedom years ago in the Hole at The Pitt. He's a professional at this sort of dance. And if these fuckers see you healing off a broken nose in moments, then the gig is up and you'll be shipped to that bitch Kundanika wrapped in my guts. And then you'll wish for a clean death like crucifixion."

Hog wanted to ask what the Hole was, or who the hell was this Kundanika Wernher seemed afraid of. His training came back to him, however, when the Supervisor walked upon a small stage, announced that the bets were open, and then called for Terence to walk into the ring.

Pacing his breath, Hog removed his shirt, socks, and handed both to Wernher. Maybe it was because it was night and the only light came from lanterns, the moon, and the odd streetlight, but despite Lucas' worries, nobody seemed to particularly care about his pale complexion.

Reddup was already in the ring, stretching and looking all around like a big, mean sonofabitch. He was taller than Hog by a good half a foot and with broader shoulders. Thick muscles and a few hints of fat were crisscrossed with faded, white marks from lashes where body hair didn't grow. By the way he moved as he warmed up, the way his feet moved in synch with the rest of the body and not an afterthought, and the fluidity of his movements despite his size, however, Hog knew Wernher wasn't downplaying the bastard.

Especially because that kind of showing off was just intimidation. The real deal would be worse, unless he belonged to the hotshot department, like Butch and his Snakes.

Hog, by comparison, was leaner and more defined to Reddup's bulkier mass. However, Wernher's warning kept ringing in his ears as he accepted some blood-crusted bandages and started wrapping them around his wrists and ankles. He couldn't allow the bastard to hit him hard enough to faint, or where it'd show too much. On that note, he motioned back for his shirt and shrugged it back on, to Reddup's jeering.

A gun fired, the crowd brayed for blood, and Reddup charged with a shout, guard high. Hog ducked under a hook, shifted around the follow-up haymaker, then danced away from Reddup's rising knee. The raider chuckled, then closed the gap, taking a low-kick to the thigh to get within fist range. With a quick, devastating combination, he tried to push Hog in the corner. The blows made his forearms flare in pain as he turtled up, then he wove around the finisher and slammed his fist into Reddup's chin.

The big raider stumbled, dazed. Hog capitalized with a kick to the ribs and another to his knee, but Reddup blocked the latter with his shin, and then was on him again. Hook, jab, feint, jab again: Reddup advanced with the inexorability of a steamroller and his blows landed like bricks, but Hog's guard held, the pain to his forearms and elbows growing manageable after the initial flares.

In return, Hog worked on his ribs, thighs, and knees with every opening he found or created. For his efforts, he took a punch to the gut that almost made him puke the incriminating steaks and a blow to the right shoulder that numbed his arm and nearly dislodged the bone from its socket. After that, he barely dodged the frontal kick that smashed through one of the pallets, sending splinters flying. The crowd roared, cheered, taunted, and insulted both fighters and each other alike. Dozens of voices flowed into a whirlwind at the edge of Hog's awareness.

Reddup picked up the pace, seeking to capitalize on Hog's arm being out of the picture. Hog managed to keep him at a distance with a mix of high kicks and feints, always mixing up the pattern. Reddup was good enough to pick up on any repeat sequence, as he used none himself. After another kick and dodge, the raider's left leg began to wobble. The beginning of a bruise was also visible around his ribs, under the sweat and grime.

Hog's next dodge was too narrow, and Reddup's punch turned into a grab that launched Hog against the ring. The nails popped and the pallet fell backward with Hog onto his back on top of it, breathless for a long moment. Then the crowd hollered and heaved pallet and fighter up, catapulting him right into the path of Reddup's knockout blow.

Hog ducked, just not in the direction Reddup expected. His right fist, supposedly useless but long recovered, plowed through Reddup's nose, shedding first blood. The raider staggered, then his left leg gave up on his weight when Hog's left knee slammed just under his ribcage, pushing his liver up into his lungs.

Still, Reddup fought. Wheezing, he swiped a punch at Hog's midsection, then rose on a snarling bull tackle. His chin cracked when Hog's other knee met it. His cheekbone followed as Hog twisted his entire body behind a downward hook to the face.

Blood pooling on the tarmac, Reddup refused to stay down. Hog had to respect his resilience and power. Without Moira's messing with his DNA, that blow to the shoulder would have done him in eventually, or the pain from his forearms cracking all over would have.

Still, the bastard was a raider. The kind of scum Regulators killed for a living. And Wernher had made the rules very clear.

Hog kicked his grappling hands away and stomped down hard on the base of his spine. The bones _cracked_ , his entire body seized up, and Reddup's cry of pain turned into a gurgle. He was still conscious, though. Unable to give up, but conscious. Hog sat on his back and took his neck into a hold.

Ignoring Reddup's weakening struggles, he snapped his neck like he had that Talon mercenary in the Vault.

It was only when he climbed back to his feet and spat on the corpse that he realized the crowd had fallen silent, save for the Supervisor's slow clapping.

Then Wernher tapped his cane on the tarmac. Several raiders around him groaned, cursed, and grumbled, but soon satchels of caps, packs of cigarettes, chems, and assorted miscellanea started piling at his feet.

Adrenaline and satisfaction at the win roaring through his veins, Hog couldn't help it. He laughed.

0 * TTL * 0

Within the following days, the Supervisor came through with his part of the deal. One night, he forced them to attend a rehearsal of _A Christmas Carol_ at the Apollo Theatre. All actors were local slaves, among them the two Hog had scared up at the Roundhouse. None were from the Vault. The playwright, the new Apollo, was eager to avoid the fate of his predecessor, judging from how he kept sending looks at the crusted blood staining the stage and hammered his troupe about every minor mistake. Hog didn't give him many chances.

It had been a sorry sight, one that couldn't be over soon enough. At the end of it, like some sort of reward for enduring the desperate acting, they received a pair of armored mining suits with armored boots and gloves. On that occasion, Hog also replaced his shemagh with a full gas mask, just one of the many things Wernher had won by betting on him against the late Reddup.

He spent most of his time left at The Meat Park getting used to breathing through a filter, and otherwise smoking and training cooped up in the Belle Boyd House. Hog wasn't fond of how every breath with the contraption on reminded him of the Vault, but the arrangement had the added bonus of keeping his mind focused on what was to come, what he was there to do, and not on the slaves sleeping in cages in the theater's backstage.

"This way, they'll breath and live the stage experience even when they rest," the Supervisor had explained when Wernher pointed out the arrangement. Even from the audience seats, Hog had only smelled the pervasive stench of too many bodies crammed together in poor living and hygienic conditions.

Hog and Wernher were waiting on the platform with the Supervisor when the steam train rolled back into The Meat Park from the south, when four days after it had left for the south-east.

Wernher had dolled up his face some more for the train's return, letting his beard grow to a proper bush. The wide-brimmed hat and protective goggles he donned for the occasion also concealed his widened, slightly vacant eyes. His ankle wasn't getting any better, so Hog had to dose him with med-x in order for him to stand and walk without a cane.

First impressions were fundamental, after all, and a cane wouldn't sell a mercenary façade.

The train pulled to a stop, the screech of brakes puncturing Hog's ears. Shortly after, a much-diminished crew disembarked. There was no trace of the leader. Instead, a man in a mining suit not unlike his own and a face that was a single mass of blisters, blackened wounds, and what looked a lot like dead, flaking skin walked up to the Supervisor. After a brief exchange, he turned his attention to the duo as a few crates were unloaded from the train.

"Who's Terence? You skinny thing? You're the motherfucker who did Reddup in? Jeez. And I see you've come prepared, gas mask and all." He jutted a thumb over his shoulder, narrowing eyes so light they were almost white at each of them in turn. "We'll see if you belong in that uniform, or down in Lowtown with the grinders soon enough. I'm Duke. Mount up, we leave in ten for The Pitt."

0 = TTL = 0

 _AN: Brief Story Recommendation time:_

 _-A_ _Beautiful Heart_ _by DocMarter 2525 was completed last month. You've already heard me gushing about it, so now's your chance to experience it from start to finish without any issues._

 _-_ _If you Dance with the Devil, You might as well Lead_ _by DmCrebel25. A redux of his previous story, there's a competent LW, a badass Owyn Lyons, extensive alterations to the timeline and the main plot, good action, and Burke. What else is there to say?_

 _Sarah and the rest of the Capitol Wasteland will come back later, in_ _ **Gospel**_ _. I think the Pitt deserves some undivided focus, and switching back to Sarah's own ordeal wouldn't make the tone of this arc jump like crazy._

 _Thank you for reading. Don't forget to leave a_ _ **review**_ _._

 _ **Edit:** 08/10/17, **PartyPat22** was here._


	19. Foundry IV: A Man with a Vision

**Foundry IV: A Man with a Vision**

 _My thanks to_ _ **Paladin Bailey, DmCrebel25, ScrimshawPen (x5), PartyPat22, Alternate NonFiction,, Aegon Blacksteel, Typedoutatnight, The Desert Dancer, Winding Warpath, Master Doom Maker, colstrent (x2),**_ _and_ _ **Living Pretty**_ _for their feedback, support, and critiques. This chapter is a bit of an experiment, in that it is a single scene. Let me know how – and if – it delivered on your end._

 _To avoid confusion regarding The Pitt's geography, the railway from DC crosses no bridge to get into Pittsburgh proper. Going by the actual maps, a train from D.C. would actually approach from the North-East, rather than the South-East, and reach into the heart of Pittsburgh._

0 = TTL = 0

The boxcar was a cage of vibrations that rippled through the clothes and skin of Hog's back and legs like a massage. It impressed a buzzing tremor into his bones that was sound as much as touch, a shaking drone just beneath the chugging of the locomotive and the rattling beat of wheels on rails.

It brought to his mind the suffused hum of the Vault's machinery, the echoes of the reactor's activity spreading like a heartbeat through the maintenance tunnels. It was also the stomping of patrolling feet just a foot above his head the nights he'd slither out on a foraging run, or just for the hell of it.

And yet, the Vault had no wind. It whipped against the sides of his head from the open side door, whistled into his ears, and cut through the armored miner uniform he wore. Faint streaks of black and gray coal smoke followed it in, but it barely stood out against the leaden sky outside that swallowed the fair weather that had seen the train out of The Meat Park and through the Appalachians.

It was a silent trip, at first. The crew manning the train was so reduced, Wernher and Hog just picked an empty boxcar and stuck there alone and unbothered.

Time grounded to a crawl. Hog found himself checking his Pip-Boy over and over to see that only a handful of minutes had passed every time, until Wernher snapped at him to keep that damn watch in his pocket. There were only so many times he could check his gear either before he ran out of things to keep his brain busy. That happened even way before the train rolled through Cunt Land Waystation.

The train didn't even stop at the next settlement, O'Connell Waystation. It just slowed some to pass through the gates, and then was speeding off again. Hog only got to see a slice of it through the open side-door, but soon put it out of his mind. Wernher offered names and not much else anyway. It didn't take long after the med-x wore off for the older man to start to grimace and brood in his corner.

Hog, however, couldn't stay still. He stood and paced. He smoked, removing his mask and putting it on again a dozen times in an hour, until he felt like throwing the thing away. All the while, he stole glances out of the side door, until he just grabbed a handle bar and kept staring out. The landscape morphed before his eyes from countryside to hills to barren ridges, interrupted only by desolate towns not a soul populated.

Then, well into his first pack, Wernher started speaking, like a voice from the underworld. Hog couldn't tell whether the former slave was angry at reliving memories best left forgotten to ease the silence, or just growling from the pain.

Over the years, The Pitt's slavers had bled the hardy communities for their only real resource, warm bodies, often carrying off entire towns at a time. They acted systematically, Wernher said, raiding and pillaging as they expanded their influence with every mile of repaired rails.

The few survivors, when any, simply disappeared into the mountains, chow for monsters or picked off by 'them bastard Blue Knots horsemen'. Wernher fell silent after that. He just took off his goggles and rubbed the scarred crater under his eyepatch. Hog's unspoken questions hung like a putrid mist between them.

Every word added another drop to the shower of misery that was the surface world so far. Hog had once believed that life couldn't get any lower than under Almodovar's heel. How wrong and naïve could he possibly be? Vault's Law was despotic and a tool to enforce a stagnant, unfair system, but ultimately safeguarded the sanctity of life for all citizens at every level of the social pyramid. Even him, who'd nearly broken that fundamental tenet, was allowed to carry on with his existence underneath all the punishment and restrictions.

A man's life had no sanctity in the wastes. Even with groups like the Regulators, for all of their good intentions, iron balls, and sacrifice, it was a dog eat dog existence, where might and guns made right. Talon and the Paradise Falls' slavers were ten times, a hundred times more abominable than the meat-producer junkies at Jury Street, but they were too many and too powerful, so they operated scot-free. Scaled down, it was the same system, or lack thereof, that allowed him to murder scum like Reddup and end up only richer for it.

The balance between Law and Anarchy, between order and chaos, was so fucked up it'd have even been worth a laugh if it wasn't so hopeless and real.

Amidst those thoughts, the cloud bank grew ever closer, shrouding the horizon like a miasma. It spoke to Hog on a primeval level and gave off the same, permeating impression of wrongness and danger the super mutants had in the church.

His hands were guided by something more intrinsic than the prospect of Wernher's berating when he tossed away the last cigarette and put the mask back on.

' _Amata's somewhere beneath that cloud.'_ He mouthed the words until the visor started to fog over from his breath. The doubts and fear that hounded him every step of the way resurged with a vengeance and constricted his heart in a vise grip of anxiety. With a superhuman effort, he tried to force them down, refusing to look away from the hellscape that was slowly taking shape beyond the hills and ridges.

Amata wouldn't break. She would endure and survive, if only because he couldn't imagine a more stubborn protective mother than her. She ought to know he wouldn't abandon her, that he'd never betray her. Had he ever? She may have urged him to run in the Vault, but she had to know he'd find a way back to her and to her children. Even if it killed him.

The caved-in profile of skyscrapers was challenged by pinnacles of smoke belching out from a dozen blast furnaces and hundreds more fires. The mismatched tune of industry fed into the overcast, a monumental construct that obliterated any natural light. If not for a sneak peek at his Pip-Boy, Hog wouldn't know if it was still daytime, or if night had already fallen. No, everything underneath the clouds seemed to reside in a twilight zone, balanced on the thin line between setting light and impending darkness.

A thousand fires illuminated The Pitt. Many were like small moths, there a moment and gone the next, only to flicker back if only he so much blinked in another direction. Bright gouts of flame from the blast furnaces barely tinged the underside of the clouds a faint orange, but any further up anything was snuffed out by the leaden blanket that swallowed the very tops of the tallest buildings into its recesses.

What from afar Hog had assumed was the green glow of the overcast impregnated the very air underneath the leaden dome instead, boiling up from below in the twisted parody of a sun that just couldn't shine through. Even through the filter of his mask, Hog would have sworn the air tasted sick, like it tried to glue to his throat and lungs, slowly eroding the flesh to find his spirit and crush it.

Abandoned suburbs dotted with invisible eyes and flitting shapes gone too fast to make sense of passed under his eye as the skyscrapers and the mills grew to towering dimensions. Then the tracks shifted to hug the contours of a tall ridge, so close Hog could have touched the brittle rock if he'd just reached out with his free hand.

When the tracks curved again and the green, sickly glow fully bathed the inside of the boxcar once more, it wasn't the sight of The Pitt's industrial complex that greeted him again, however, but that of the Allegheny River.

Hog didn't need to check his Pip-Boy for the name. He'd dreamed of this river, that night at Jury Street.

The broken ends of bridges lined both banks, with only hints of long-crumbled middle sections protruding from water thick as molasses. Globs of near-solid mist hovered in pockets here and there, concealing large swathes of the distant bank, but through sparser pockets, Hog saw humanoid shapes hobble and gallop on all fours along its length.

The more he stared, the more Hog leaned out of the boxcar as if drawn by the inscrutable water, his grip clamped around the handle bar. He failed to suppress a shiver as the wind slammed into him like a wall, but that was nothing to the dull drone in his ears pitching into the shrill, wordless cry of a baby, sharper and more cutting than any scalpel. Another voice joined the first and they played off each other like his skull was their sound box. Then the two voices overlapped and annulled each other into a deafening silence.

He squinted under his mask as the pressure receded as suddenly as it had come, leaving only an echo. The misshapen, humanoid shapes had already disappeared, devoured by the mist. In trying to catch another glimpse of them, Hog's eyes fell on the twin pylons of the only intact bridge, the glaring light show lining its length a beacon to rival the city's itself.

Cables descended from the top of the pylons, branching out to support the weight of the bridge. Hog looked on, almost enthralled, unable to tear his eyes away as they searched following the sweep of the floodlights on the bridge. What he was searching for, Hog couldn't begin to tell. He only had a feeling he'd know when he found it. In all of his life, he'd never felt less in control of himself.

Then he saw it. Near the third of the bridge closer to him, one of the thinner cables swished and slashed at the air. Snapped free from its housing, it cast a rippling shadow on the water below.

The world stopped vibrating. Hog blinked, unable to look anywhere but ahead. He was standing in the Vault's cafeteria at the nadir of his life, heart pounding and panting from exertion.

 _Never forsake me and I'll never forsake you._

In the horror-induced silence around him he saw only Amata, stunned and pale from shock, but, under that, understanding, even acceptance. She always accepted him for who he was despite their differences, even when that brought her nothing but misery.

 _I'll never forsake you as long as I live._

Another blink and he was back in the Clinic, stuck laying down as she smiled at him from beyond the closing door.

 _Hog, run!_

' _A? A?! Don't go! Where are you?'_

"Have you lost your fucking mind?!"

Hog found himself staring at the rusty floor through a foggy visor, back pressed to the inside of the boxcar and head wedged between his knees. He was shaking, his hands balled into fists around the straps of the gas mask. His eyes were burning, but it took seeing them streaking down the inside of his visor to recognize the taste of tears.

"Now's not the time for a goddamn nervous breakdown!" Wernher continued, "We're about to pull up. I need you to take care of the walking around. Fucking answer me!"

Hog nodded. He took a deep, sterilized breath, blinking away as he tried to find his center again. He flinched as Amata's warning echoed again in his head. The faint screech of brakes was growing in intensity.

"W-What's wrong with this place?"

Hog found himself on the receiving end of a piercing look. After a short while, Wernher gulped down some pills and cracked his neck with a grimace.

"What isn't? Rads and industrial waste have made it a plagued slump. I wouldn't even try to skinny-dip into the Shit River unless you want your toes to fall off. Literally. And you can't stay here more than a few months without getting sick. Most people just get blisters, scabs, a cough, hair falling off, sterility, the works. The other poor bastards go batshit feral or start turning into trogs and are put down."

' _Trogs?'_. His mind flashed to the galloping shapes on the river bank. Heat surged up Hog's neck and blood rushed to his temples. "And you're telling me this only now?!"

"So what? Don't give me that look." Wernher glared right back. "It takes months for the blotches and other shit to show. Your fellows have been here for what, a couple of weeks? And the plague recedes and disappears right damn quickly once you get out of here. It's why Ashur rotates most of his people among the waystations every so often."

"Fuck Ashur and fuck the slavers!" Hog snapped, now up and pacing. Trying to pinch the bridge of his nose had his fingers only hit the visor. What had Moira said about how living in the Vault affected his immune system? It was hard to remember with his brain still feeling like it had just returned from a few jumps in a frying pan. Definitely not good news. His nostrils flared, but the memory kept eluding him, hidden behind a flaring headache and ghost words.

He needed to get Amata and her children out of there. Fast. "How long until your plan can kick into motion?"

"That depends a lot on my new friends. The revolt's gonna be the opening act, but it needs to be timed just before their arrival, or this whole thing goes belly-up." The screech of the brakes was by now nearly deafening. Wernher pulled himself up, using his rifle as a crutch. He hobbled in place, grimacing as he put weight on his injured ankle. "The buffout ain't gonna last forever, so listen well. Here's what we gonna do."

Splitting up wasn't a question of preference, but of need. Wernher's destination was one of the mess halls catering to the slaves, only a block away from the station, near the market square. It was close enough for the limping man to reach before the drugs wore off.

Kai, the slave kapo running the place, was one of the leaders of the revolt. She would smuggle Wernher to the insurrectionist's headquarters across the Allegheny, into the savage half of the city only known as the Steelyard.

Still shaken from his 'vision', with echoes whispering and pleading at the edges of his awareness, Hog nonetheless expressed his reservations at setting up the nerve center of the revolt in a place Wernher liberally dubbed Trog Central.

"It's the only place Ashur's eyes and ears won't be caught dead," Wernher countered, "and there was nowhere else to set up a radio to coordinate with my friends anyway. You'll see. Now show me that watch of yours."

Hog's destination was further east, a mill near the intersection of the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela rivers, collectively known by the locals as the Shit Rivers. There, another kapo called Midea Shen oversaw the maintenance and assembly of locomotives and boxcars, when she wasn't upriver at the coal power plant in Springdale, or at the coal mines near Mt. Washington.

It was a lofty job for a slave, but Wernher said Midea was the only woman qualified for it. "She's the adoptive daughter of the zombie who got the coal power plant upriver up and running, after the tin knights stomped through. So when he died to the trogs some, what, eight years ago? She was the only one who knew enough to pick up his slack."

"This whole revolt hinges on a collaborator?" The Supervisor was already a hard pill to swallow, but his days at The Meat Park had shown how little the man actually was. This Midea sounded like the worst kind of collaborator, the one ready to let everyone else burn in hell if she got to lounge in the fucking Limbo. Vault 101 had more than one or two people like that.

"I don't give a shit if you trust her or not. You're better off not trusting anyone in any case." Wernher's eyes flashed as the buffout returned some color to his face. He tapped the Pip-Boy's screen. "I'm telling you what's happening and what you'll do. I – we are the only chance you have got to walk out of here with that sweet piece of ass and the rest of your Vault rats in tow, so it's this way or the highway."

' _Motherfucker. One-eyed son of a bitch!'_ For a few wild moments, Hog really considered punching the smugness off the older man's face. Every heartbeat pounding against the inside of his skull encouraged him to just let his fist fly.

But that was going to accomplish exactly what the GOAT's after-party had. A big load of worse than nothing. Wernher's smile told Hog all there was to know: he needed the bastard more than Wernher needed him. Without him, he'd be alone and so behind enemy lines, he might as well put a gun in his mouth and save them all the trouble.

"Good boy," Wernher said after Hog paced to the other end of the boxcar, seething. "Look, you can stop worrying. Midea's one cold bitch, but she cares for these slaves like nobody's business. Hell, she's the only kapo that's lasted more than two years without falling from some ramp or - " He was cut short as the train staggered to a sudden halt and for a moment, keeping balance was the only thing on their minds.

Hog stumbled, arms flailing to compensate for the unfamiliar force. Wernher hobbled up to the sliding door and glanced out, frowning. "Looks like the latest cargo from Ronto beat us to the finish line, and there's another heading out the other way. Bit of a jam at the intersection. Numbskulls."

Wernher lit himself a cigarette. Hog went for one as well, but then the green haze that curled into the boxcar from the outside made him think again, and not only about a smoke.

He wasn't ready to bury that hatchet yet or let that conversation derail, even if remodeling Wernher's face was out of the equation.

"It sounds more like Ashur's protecting his golden goose than everyone loving her because she keeps the system running."

"Lord Ashur believes he's a god, but even he can't see everything," Wernher chuckled, "or prevent every accident at the mills. More than one kapo has taken a dive into a cauldron of molten metal when they let the power go to their head. And sure, the newcomers hate and curse Midea's name, but The Pitt has a unique way to make the slaves band together, even if Ashur's mice try and spread division. Who or what every slave was before…" the former slave made a vague gesture with his hand, then shrugged. "Surviving here doesn't leave much time to hold on to the past. For most, the present's all they got the strength to care about. Only a few dare look to the future."

Hog pressed on, seeing confirmation of his doubts in Wernher's words. "And who's responsible for that? Who's the one giving Ashur the tools to perpetuate this circle of slavery and death? How many -"

"Hundreds. Thousands." Wernher chuckled, then caught himself. "More than you can even count, spud. But there was never any other choice. You of all people should understand that."

"Understand what? She could have said no!" Without her knowledge, without those trains and the power to work the mills, maybe Ashur's network would have never expanded as far as DC.

And maybe, without The Pitt on the phone, hungry for slaves, Talon would have left the Vault alone. Nobody would have ended up in this plagued cesspit. The Overseer would still rule unopposed. James would still be a drunk, bitter doctor, not the man who sold his own people into slavery.

And he'd still be the Vault's pariah, confined to his hole and dirt until the thankless end of his days.

' _Or maybe Ashur would have found someone else, and I'd still be here, only blaming them instead.'_

Wernher looked at him like he'd just barfed on his shoes. "And after the mills stopped working, what's the result? Hundreds, thousands of slaves trapped in this hole with an army of bloodthirsty bastards out of a job overnight. Everyone competing for what little food's there. It'd be death. Look around you. Look!" Wernher pointed a finger out of the door. "It's all rads, pollution, and trogs for miles. The hills and suburbs are crawling with wildmen, there are _things_ worse than crawlers in the waters, and fuck only knows what else. Nothing short of them Brotherhood of fucking Steel could fight its way out through that mess. No, the railway is the only way out of this cesspit. Do you think you're the only one who wants to leave? Do you think anyone wants to live here?" He snorted, blowing smoke from his nostrils. "Only Ashur's that obsessed with these mills."

"You're saying she sacrificed more people to Ashur's machine so that those already in The Pitt would have a chance at freedom?" Who was she, to decide the life and death of so many? How did she dare?!

"How many times do I have to tell you? You ain't accomplishing shit without sacrifice and compromises."

"Whose sacrifice are we talking about here?" Hog snapped. "Who gave her the right to condemn others to this fate? How's that any better than the slavers?"

Wernher threw his head back and laughed at him. "You think some almighty higher-up told Ashur 'Hey, big guy. Now you can go and pillage and shit on everyone's lives'? Fuck no. Nobody gives you the right to do shit out here. This ain't your fucking perfect little Vault. Right and wrong are for those who can afford it. It's eat, or get eaten." Before Hog could even attempt to work out a reply, Wernher grabbed Hog's mask and pulled him closer, until his nose was barely an inch from the visor.

Hog's hand had his wrist in a vise the next moment, but Wernher only offered him his most vicious grin yet, one dripping loathing. "You're a little judgmental shit, aren't you, Hogarth Mitchell? Looking down on us wastelanders from your fucking perch. Tell me then: what would you do in her place? Kill yourself? What if the choice was between your Vault buddies and five, ten times that number in faceless nobodies, just numbers in your head? Would you give up on the people you've bled and suffered and shat with all your fucking life? Or would you bite and claw and endure just to give them a chance to see the fucking sun one more time, before The Pitt drains them dry?!"

Hog's grip loosened. He stumbled back a step when Wernher pushed away and then he stood there, trying to work out an answer that just wouldn't form as Wernher's words sunk in. A minute later the train jerked into motion again and Wernher turned away to pick up his pack.

"Don't even bother," Wernher said, then spat to the side. "I already know your answer. Fucking hypocrite."

"Hey, Polyphemus." Why was it always the one-eyed ones that got to him?

"What is it – " A choked grunt escaped Wernher's gritted teeth as Hog slammed the older man into the wall, pinning him in place with an elbow to the throat and the ripper's blade pressing between his legs. All previous considerations flew out of the window. There was only so much he could take laying down from this lying, manipulative asshole. Even if he knew he was right, and admitting it felt like letting go of another piece of himself, it didn't matter. Enough was enough.

"Now you shut up and listen to me, you sanctimonious piece of shit," he hissed, muffled through the mask. When Wernher struggled, he pressed down on his larynx until the former slave was squirming and gasping for breath. The teeth of the ripper pressing between his legs silenced even that. "You've lied to me about this place, about your plan, about your associates, about the risks for my _pregnant_ friend! You act like you're the hippest thing since sliced bread and you've got the gospel in your hands, but without me, you'd be crawler shit right now."

The train's brakes engaged with a low shriek of metal on metal, but this time Hog was ready. He leaned more weight on Wernher for good measure, secretly relishing as the man grasped at the arm pinning him in place.

"But you give good advice, so I'm going to lift that page about trust from your book and tell you this: I'm not your fiddle. You backstab me, I heal, and then I'll come for you." He brought up the ripper then and tapped Wernher on the cheek with it, just under his working eye. "If you or any of your friends even think about screwing me and mine over like I'm that idiot Supervisor, I'll blind you for good. Then we'll see if you've got anything to laugh about."

Wernher glared, but there was something different behind those eyes now, a resolution Hog felt in his bones he should have seen long ago, even if he couldn't put a name to it. Then Wernher grunted an assent and Hog put that thought aside for later.

Next thing he knew, he was jumping on the station platform. His first thought was one of regret and longing for the screeching brakes stabbing at his eardrums.

"Work is what separates man from beast. Work is what raises us above trogs and wildmen!" Loudspeakers boomed with fervor and gravitas, speaking with one voice. "Work is what makes us human! Let no man call you slaves: we are all workers. Be it in the mills, in the alleys, or in the warzones. Work is rewarded, sloth is punished. Such is the way we thrive in this hellish place. We all work. Work is what will set you free!"

The rotting corpses, skeletons, and the few gaunt, feverish slaves stuck in pillories that greeted Hog first thing out of the train station didn't look much the part of workers. It was with selfish relief and shame that he didn't recognize anyone among their number.

Close by, dozens of slaves chained in rows were marched off another train and forced to pass by the pillories. Their handlers ordered them to take a good, long look, freely administering lashes and punches to any who so much as looked away once. The youngest couldn't be older than ten.

"Burn all of this into your brain," Wernher hissed in his ear. "This place is the ego of a madman who believes he's a god, a great worker, and the hard man who's gotta make them tough choices for everyone else, all in one." Wernher spat on the ground. "All I see a tyrant that has enslaved two generations and started this circus. You better not fucking forget it."

Hog's grip on his rifle turned white-knuckled under his gloves. Then he started to walk.

Where Mr. Broch's holovids on pre-War history pictured city streets packed full with cars and busy crowds, railway tracks and minecarts ruled the eternal gloom of The Pitt. Crews of slaves pushed and pulled dozens of the rectangular buckets on narrow tracks built on top of the tarmac. The contents varied: some hauled mountains of coal, others were filled to the brim with metal scraps or heaps of ingots. Just as many were empty, but that only meant the crews pushed faster, hollow eyes intent on their feet or ahead, never up.

A few carts he saw stacked with crates upon crates whose labels spoke of guns, ammunition, or things Hog just couldn't discern at a simple glance. Tough-looking slavers with gas masks and bandanas guarded those, guns out and eyes peeled for any suspicious twitch. More patrolled up above, keeping to the sprawling network of catwalks, platforms and fortified access ramps that were Uptown between themselves and the masses of slaves down below.

Hog kept Wernher's advice from The Meat Park to mind. He walked with purpose, his posture challenging anyone to bar his way and ask for an identification dog tag he didn't have. Every step, every person he crossed, however, was another blow to his purported composure as the realities of The Pitt, so easy to weaponize when threatening Wernher, turned from words to hard fact.

Armor and gas masks concealed the bodies and features of the slavers, but the slaves were clad in rags and harnesses that only exacerbated the unmistakable signs of plague. Blisters, infected wounds, and scabs on skin that looked abraded by sandpaper were a staple without exceptions. Lattices of veins bulged an intense blue under their thin skin, when hematomas didn't color them black and blue. Some of the older-looking slaves, their real age undecipherable from thick scar tissue and destitution, only had grey tufts of hair left dotting their papery scalps.

The hacking bark of coughs soon became inseparable from the creak of wheels rolling on metal, another note in the pervasive chatter of industry ringing all around him.

The few slaves walking unburdened by carts gave Hog a wide berth, taking extra care not to meet his searching eyes. He could still feel theirs on the back of his head, however, and more still watching from behind boarded windows or from Uptown.

He never even glanced up to meet them. Part of it was chilling fear that they'd single him out and see through his ruse, but soon he was too preoccupied with checking every head of dark hair or just trying to catch any hint of Vault blues to let that fear control him. Every plague-ravaged face that wasn't Amata's brought him guilty relief, but as the mill grew out of the haze and smoke and he had yet to catch a single hint of any vault dweller, it was anxiety that clawed up on his back and set between his shoulder blades like a physical weight.

' _Where are you, A? Where have they taken all of you?'_

The armor got him past the bored guard at the mill's entrance without a second glance, but Midea wasn't around the boxcar being assembled in a whirlwind of pulleys, rivets, and blowtorches. One of the slaves, always looking down, pointed him at a cubicle of an office to the side, telling him Marco would know. Inside, Hog found an older-looking man pouring over some records at a desk, capped pen in hand and one arm draped over some lunchbox from where a riot of cables poked out. Despite the collar around his neck, he met Hog's gaze without hesitation, before stiffly returning to his register.

"What's up, boss?"

Hog looked around, but there was nowhere in the cubicle for a person to hide. He pushed the door closed with his heel, then glanced at the drawn curtains. When he looked back at the slave, the lunchbox was gone.

"I need to see Midea." Wasn't that an understatement.

Marco shrugged. "Word came down half an hour ago she was needed at the coal mines. One of the hoists seized up. What can you do, right?"

Hog's eyes narrowed at the now empty spot on the desk. He couldn't leave empty-handed, and he was certainly not going to wait or wander the city without aim.

"Why don't you put that lunchbox back on where it was?"

What followed entailed a lot of one-sided gun-pointing, threats, and poor dissimulation that found a bloodless conclusion when Hog dropped Wernher's name when he saw exactly what the lunchbox was. Yet when he produced his Pip-Boy from his pocket to corroborate his story, pity pulled Marco's face in familiar lines. The slave didn't quite look him in the eye anymore after that.

Shortly after, Hog left the mill behind with a counterfeit dog tag around his neck, courtesy of a slaver long asleep with the things in the Shit Rivers, and his pack heavier from a few surprise lunchboxes Marco asked him to dot all over Uptown when he got the chance.

"Mine the main ramps and maybe the barracks near Haven, if you get the chance. A nice bonus for the big day," the older man said with a tired, stiff smile before he shut the door behind him. This time, the click of a lock followed shortly.

Playing Una Bomber Santa Claus would have to come later, though. Presenting his new dog tags was all it took for the nearest checkpoint to swing open and admit him to Uptown. Hog rushed up the stairs, refraining only just from taking the steps two at a time, then started to navigate the ramps, trying to orient himself by matching the layout of the streets below with the Pip-Boy's map in his head and Marco's indications.

" _Word of mouth is some of your people were taken to the hospital right off the train in hazmat suits. Something to do with Ashur's 'cure', bunch of crap that is. The only cure is to leave this cesspit for good."_

" _Where? Place's here-ish, on the southern bank, but you'll never get in there, it's been on lockdown for the past two weeks. Very tight security. Something about an escape attempt had the bosses run around the entire city. We got a lot done that day."_

" _If you want some peace of mind, you should go here, the old Arrott Building at the corner of Smithfield Street and Fourth Ave. That's where the rest of your people are, but I can't tell you much else: the bosses keep them isolated."_

Those words put wings on Hog's feet, but the city toyed with his perception. It hid his destination behind endless ruins, patrols, smoke, bouncing echoes, and its green, glaring glow.

On paper, it looked easy. He just needed to head straight east, or turn south until the river and then follow that. Alien as it was to be there, the city's grid was quite linear and any doubt could be addressed with a quick study of the Pip-Boy's maps in a secluded alcove.

Uptown, however, soon turned out to be the brainchild of a madman, a work of passages tunneling through entire skyscrapers and drawbridges, a riot of internal stairways upon bifurcating catwalks that spanned across the streets, all layered on several levels and without any much-needed sign, since most of Ashur's army was nearly illiterate. The layout was so maddeningly disconnected from the city below, it had to be intentional. Nothing seemed to lead where his mental map suggested it would. Megaton and its circular structure paled in comparison.

With each dead end turning him around from his intended direction, Hog's frustration began to approach the boiling point. The mention of a hospital, rather than ease his worries, had planted a radroach-sized bug in his ear. His steps were hounded by the certainty that something, anything, had gone very, very wrong.

But here he was, completely lost. It'd have been easier if he kept to the streets, but the hospital's district was accessible only through Uptown Most of the buildings in that district being collapsed rubble and the remaining ground accesses had been sealed in during the past fifteen months to stop any slave insurgency from approaching the area.

Hog felt like tearing his mask off and shouting. He stopped on a platform to breathe and clear his thoughts, instead. His instincts were categorical that he should head to the hospital first. Pregnant women were poorly suited for taxing physical labor and, if nothing else, Ashur would want his investments to profit him, right? Hog felt disgusted at thinking in those cynical terms, but he powered through the feeling. There was always a solution, he just had to find it. When the first approach failed, scrap everything, restart from scratch, and tackle the problem from a different angle.

Hog forced himself to analyze the issue rationally, as if he was planning another raid in the Vault mess hall or a late-night foray into the Old Levels.

Looking up, his eyes fell on a spray-painted sign. Explicit drawings more than crude letters advertised the services of the Vertigo Bar & Grill, a few levels upstairs. If the place was anything like the Vet's at The Meat Park, then he may well find his ticket in right there. Grab a drunkard or two, rough them up a bit, and then follow them as they were carried to the hospital sounded like a good plan. Maybe he could even pass himself as one of the carriers.

Getting through the lockdown would be next. Just walking in would be ideal, but he didn't know if his stolen dog tags would hold up to a closer examination. Then once in, he'd need to locate Amata, but even if that went down without any bumps, how would he get out of the hospital with her? How would they hide from an army, when he could barely – if he was generous – find his way around the city? Would he have the heart to leave everyone else behind, even with the promise of a later rescue once the revolt started? If it was only Butch or Wally, they could go hang, but Burke had sold hundreds of people from 101 into slavery.

Issues and ways his plan, if it even deserved the appellative at this point, could go wrong began to pile up higher and higher the further he looked into variables and likely complications, courtesy of grey cells masochistically overexcited by the challenge. With every brick added to the wall he was metaphorically banging his head against, a conclusion began to gain momentum. It tied his other thoughts into knots until the last wall of denial, stubborn and willful blindness, crumbled and he had to admit it.

He couldn't do it. Not alone, and not by going in blind with some half-baked plan relying on terrible chances, mediocre skills, and sheer, impossible luck. Incompetence and gung-ho impetuousness would only put Amata and any others in the line of fire against overwhelming numbers.

He needed a plan, a good plan, and good plans relied on information, preparation, and just enough crazy. Mutinous thoughts crossed his mind at the sole notion of postponing again, of playing it slow and cautious, of leaving Amata in whatever hell they'd put her for even a minute longer… but he needed to start facing the hard facts, even if they were hard to swallow and he wished anything but.

Looking back on his brief trip from The Crossing, and even before, a thousand different things could have gone wrong that didn't. Blind luck and competent, outside help had won the day, time and again. Here in The Pitt, however, Hog knew that neither would be enough. If nothing else, the city itself seemed out to catch him at his first mistake and shake him until his neck snapped.

It still took him some time to make up his mind and force his body to move. A careful perusal of his Pip-Boy away from prying eyes later, a ramp led him down to the street level. Hog turned his steps in search of the Arrott Building, trying to ignore the burning sting of defeat and betrayal.

' _I'll keep my promise, A. I'll never forsake you. Just wait a little longer. Just a little longer.'_

0 = TTL = 0

 _This chapter was hard to write. I've literally lost counts of how many times I've scrapped entire pieces and written them from scratch. Some of that frustration might have seeped through. Then it started bloating and I had to split it in two, so about half of next chapter is already written as well._

 _There was a mention of the Pittsburgh Coal Seam in this chapter, because industrial mills and blast furnaces don't just operate on rainbows. The Resource Wars don't mean that every deposit of natural resources was completely exhausted: it means that the what was left available after centuries of intensive use could never meet everyone's demand, not in a million years, only more so for oil, gas, rare metals, and probably most common ones too._

 _The changes to Midea's character and role are as much a consequence of how I reworked The Pitt's social ladder and industry chain as the answer to why Ashur wouldn't just off her, when it's clear he knows she is a prime figure in the brewing revolt. Here, he simply can't afford to. Also, The Pitt could do with some more moral greyness all around, right?_

 _Lastly, a few days ago I published a one-shot about the Point of Divergence of the Wasteland Legends universe,_ _ **Conception**_ _. If the Guardian's interlude left you grasping for answers, you'll find some of them there._

 _As always, thank you all for reading. Don't forget to leave a_ _ **review**_ _. See you all soon._

 ** _Edit 06/11/17:_** _My thanks to **PartyPat22** for catching what my sleep addled mind couldn't._


	20. Foundry V: Happily Ever After

**Foundry V: Happily Ever After**

or

 **Emet** **at Altneuschul**

 _AN: My thanks to_ _ **PartyPat22, DmCrebel25, ScrimshawPen, The Desert Dancer, Aegon Blacksteel, Starship King**_ _for their reviews, feedback, and support. I find it ironical that this story has clocked the 200 reviews just before the chapter that will see me stoned in the city streets._

 _No, the second title isn't gibberish, nor an anagram. I haven't gone bonkers, yet – and if I have, I like to believe there's a method to it. Also, as a reminder: Hog is nineteen here. So, here's the chapter. Don't forget to **review**. Thank you._

0 = TTL = 0

The Vaulties at the Arrott Building weren't just isolated. They were quarantined, and the place looked ready to fold onto itself if Hog so much as looked at it crossly.

"It's no go," the dumb half of the guard duo repeated, picking at his ear, "They're sick. Like, sick sick, huh? No good for work."

"Heh, man, I know. A man has needs," the older, sympathetic half chimed in with the knowing look of a man who knew his way around the slaves' barracks. "But rules are rules: only the slop and clean-up crews go in." Gas mask hiked up on his brow, Mr. Sympathy wrapped his lips around an inhaler and depressed. It shattered to the ground a moment later. "Fuck me. Squash, you got any Jet left?"

Squash blinked, finger still stuck into his ear, then he shook his head. "No."

Hog counted down to ten twice as the duo descended into a half-hearted argument, then he put his pack down and fished out two small bags of caps. He felt only a stab of guilt at giving away Simms' funds to someone who'd use the caps for chems and alcohol, but the urgency of his predicament overpowered it within a couple heartbeats.

"Guys, I'm not here for flesh," he said in his best raider impersonation. He knew his thin, far too wide smile and gritting his teeth probably didn't help with that, but it didn't matter. "I just want to chat'em up and make'em show me how to use this thing I found." Their eyes were on the caps the moment they heard the familiar jingle, but Mr. Sympathy spared a glance at the switched-off Pip-Boy when Hog fished it out of his pocket. On a hunch, Hog pressed the advantage, tapping the RobCo logo on the underside. He forced out the shadow of a smile. "See here? It says Vault-Tec. They're from a Vault, so they gotta know how to switch it on or something."

Mr. Sympathy squinted, then nodded knowingly and palmed the offered bag, hefting it as he eyed his dumb colleague's appreciatively. "Thing ain't worth the risk, but hey, your skin. Just keep that mask on. I'm shuttin' the door behind you, call out when you're done."

It was dark inside and it only grew pitch black when the doors shut behind him. Only the dimmest glow seeped under the door or around the sealed windows, but the air was alive with faint echoes. Hog found the knob and switched on his Pip-Boy light, casting the short cone in sweeping arcs. A thick carpet of grime covered the floor, spoiled by boot imprints, dragging tracks, and dried blood.

"Don't let her be here," he whispered to himself, wincing as the words echoed all around him. "Don't let her be here." He wasn't three creaking steps up the first ramp when a voice moaned his name between coughs.

"Your voice… Hoggie. Oh, you beautiful boy." Out of the porter's lodge crawled a woman on all fours, tangled hair hiding her face. Her Vault jumpsuit was torn and filthy, the blue just a memory. She rose, stumbled, and would have fallen if Hog hadn't grabbed her. The Pip-Boy illuminated Beatrice Armstrong's gaunt face and she whimpered in pain. Tears brimmed in too-wide, too-white eyes. Hog's breath caught as if he'd been punched.

Black buboes dotted her neck, swelling it black and bleeding pus. Dark veins and large boils covered skin crumpled and paper-thin under all the dirt and grime. Hooded eyes looked at him feverishly, blinking away tears from the glaring light he shone in her face. Another cough wracked her form and green mucus dribbled from the corner her lips, trailing a line down her chin and landing on her collarbone.

He barely felt her hands touch his mask and pull it up. A vile, sweet stench, thick as tar, poured down his throat with his next breath, carpeting his lungs with the smell of waste, sickness, and death. Hog bowled over, coughing and spitting, but Beatrice's hands never left his face. She guided him up again, her touch as light and trembling as it was demanding, so frail he thought her fingers might break if he put up any resistance, and so he didn't. Her palms were warm, almost scalding.

"Beautiful and kind. Healthy… Whole. You must -" Her eyes grew wide and unfocused. She tried to push him away, but she was so weak her arms buckled. "Leave. Go! This place... it's patient. So, so patient. It's waiting for our fantastic invasion to… pass away, and then the waters will sweep the streets and wash away our bones into its dark, dark heart. It'll - sweep –"

Beatrice faltered from a dizzy spell or the plague that had turned her into a walking corpse in the span of a few weeks. Hog steadied her, hands nearly enveloping her shrunken shoulders.

"What's going on? "He whispered, throwing a quick look over his shoulder and finding only a wall of black. She looked at him, then past him, her gaze absent. Hog shook her and she flinched. Her ragged moan of pain only added to his sense of urgency, ramping up to new heights. "Where's everyone, Ms. Armstrong? Look at me, please. What happened to you?"

Beatrice licked her cracked lips with a swollen tongue, heads lolling to the side like a broken marionette's.

"Up… always up. The Overseer…" He guided her to a nearby chair, but, as he sat her down, her hand grabbed his wrist with surprising strength. "Don't leave me, Hoggie. It hurts. It hurts everywhere…" Weak sobs mixed with another coughing fit as she slumped in the chair, barely upright.

"I'll come back, Ms. Armstrong," he mumbled as he pried her hand off as gently as he could and turned away. He squeezed his eyes shut and lowered the mask on his face again, as if trying to silence the voice telling him he was a sick bastard for leaving Stanley's daughter behind, the loony, stifling lady who'd gifted him oddly dark and grim poems for his every birthday. "I have to check on something. You… stay put, okay? I'll be back."

Hog climbed up to the first floor, deafened by the echo of his steps. The Pip-Boy light bathed a hazy corridor of doors sprung wide open or missing. Hog forced his feet to move, shining the shaking light into the first room, then the next. Among the veil of dust particles set alight in a green and white blaze, bloody hand and footprints large and small decorated the floor in great numbers, forming multiple trails that lead in and out of every room.

He choked down a cry of horror when the tracks led him to Floyd Lewis. His fellow, annoying engineer at the MaintDep was sprawled in the middle of the corridor, surrounded by a congealed pool of his blood. Something had torn into him, ripping his abdomen open with abandon and chewing with great bites through his neck and face. His legs were up and bent at the knee, almost as if he'd been curled up in a fetal position before he was killed.

Hog stood riveted, limbs heavy as lead as he stared at what remained of one of the banes of his previous existence. After the weeks he'd spent fighting in the wastes, someone like Floyd didn't look much the part of the insurmountable obstacle from his Vault days anymore.

 _'That's because he's dead and chewed,'_ his conscience chided him.

Then he heard the growling. Human growling.

His gun left the holster as he turned away from the dreary sight to an even more revolting one. Three figures in ragged blues crouched over Mr. Brotch in the next room, mouths and fingers worrying and nibbling at his decaying flesh like radroaches'. They hissed and spat when the Pip-Boy's light disturbed them, eyes shining behind protective hands as they turned around to shield the late Vault teacher, now their meal, from the intruder.

Francis Gorobitz, pre-teen features contorted into a repugnant snarl, snapped his teeth and waved his smeared hands at him. His body was coiled, ready to spring.

"Go awaaay! Ours! Ours! Sooty, away!"

Hog stumbled back, heart beating like a drum in his ears, and slipped. He hit the floor hard on his back and kicked at the moldy moquette, crawling back until the wall stopped him. The Desert Eagle shook in his grasp, aimless. The three cannibals remained just beyond the edge of the cone of light, shadowy silhouettes glaring at him.

Hog staggered to his feet, using the wall as an anchor. Cold sweat made his eyes sting and he knew he was starting to hyperventilate from how dizzy he felt, but he couldn't look away from what he knew was there, what he knew he'd just seen. The gun was heavy in his hand, almost heavier than young Francis Gorobitz when he'd picked him up to run away from the giant ants.

This was crazy. It couldn't be. It wasn't supposed to happen. He was just a kid. No kid should eat their fucking teacher!

The two bigger cannibals thought otherwise. They emerged from the shadows and barreled out of the room, slamming into each other in their rush to sink their teeth into him. The male soldiered on, spouting gibberish and dark spittle that smacked Hog's visor. His finger refused to depress the trigger, however, even if the plague and all the blood left little of human to recognize. Then the man was on him, bony hands closing around his throat, trying to crush his larynx.

Panic and self-preservation overruled confusion. One swing, a _crack_ of bone against the butt of his gun, and the strangling grip slacked. The male _thudded_ on his knees, then slumped on his side. Hog only had eyes for the lunging Mary Kendall, however, and her fingers splayed like claws. He ducked and she tripped on the male, then he grabbed her by the back of her head, only for his hand to come away with a handful of greying, dry hair. She wheeled on him, screeching like a banshee and clawing at his face.

Hog grabbed her wrists and held them high above her head, then pinned her to the wall with his weight and his gun arm.

"Mrs. Kendall! Mary!" He pleaded one of the many people who had been content to believe he didn't exist in the Vault. She'd made him biscuits for his eighth birthday, once. "It's me, Hogarth! Hogarth Mitchell! Please, calm down! I – I won't hurt you!"

She snarled back at him, spitting blood and bits of flesh – Mr. Brotch's blood and flesh. Her voice came out in a low gurgle, as if she'd been chewing and swallowing gravel.

"Youuu! Traitoor!"

"Please, Mrs. Kendall!" He pleaded again, then had to snap his head back when she tried to bite him. "Stop it!"

"Hey, man!" Mr. Sympathy's call echoed up the stairwell. "Everythin' cool? That's one hell of a noisy discussion you're havin' up there."

' _Fuck."_ Hog forced his breathing to slow in the face of a new wave of panic and anger. He put an armored hand over Ms. Kendall's face, holding her jaw shut and keeping her silent as he picked his uncooperative brain for an answer. _'Fuck!'_

"You still there, man?" He could hear his steps echoing closer, but the guard seemed hesitant to venture further into the dark and leave the safety of the outside. "Trog bit your tongue?"

Ms. Kendall struggled harder, hissing and pushing into his hand, turning her head this way and that. Hog clamped down tighter on instinct, trying to restrain her as he coaxed his own voice to just start working again.

"I-it's alright," he croaked, but the lie burned out before it carried far. He cleared his throat, pitching his voice higher than Mary Kendall's ever shriller struggle. "'S all good, thanks! A couple of them, they got violent. Nothing to worry about."

There was a pause, then the guard cursed. "Shit, again already? Talk about losin' it fast. Get out of here, man. No funny gadget's worth becomin' a chewtoy." The echo of his steps started retreating fast. "I'll call in the clean-up crews. They never say no to a bit of extra sport."

"No, wait!" He called out, but the door slammed shut downstairs. Then Mrs. Kendall's struggle ceased and she slumped against him, her head lolling boneless against his hand. Her eyes had rolled up, taking on that glazed-over quality Hog had already learned to recognize.

Hog recoiled, staggering away. The gun he'd been holding slipped from his limp hand, thudding on the brained, unmoving male. Mrs. Kendall followed it down not a moment later, her legs folding under her without support. His eyes flitted between the two bodies, the two _Vaulties_ he had just killed. They were staring at nothing, their chests still. Fresh blood was pooling beneath the male's head, mixing with Floyd's.

"Oh God. I'm sorry. I – I didn't want to – didn't mean to – I'm sorry."

The scraping of hands and feet made him turn around. The light illuminated Francis Gorobitz in the doorway. He was hunched over, almost crouched, animalistic fear shaking his small limbs. Blood caked the lower half of his face and painted his hands a dark, dripping red up to his elbows. Hog swallowed, hoping the feral boy wouldn't jump at him, silently praying he'd get scared and just… go away, or back to his meal.

He didn't quite manage to tear off his mask before his lunch decided to relocate on the floor.

When the dry heaves stopped and he looked up again, fresh tears in his eyes from the sweet, rotten smell, the boy he'd once saved was gone. A new bout of nausea almost floored Hog again when his searching light outlined the remains of Mr. Brotch and it was a long minute before he could stand up again on shaking legs. Francis' tracks headed off, deeper into the recesses of the building.

Hog hesitated, but he didn't follow.

' _I can't – I must find A. If she's here, if the plague has made her crazy too –'_ He stomped on that line of thought before it could take root. He picked up the foul-smelling mask and hooked it to his belt, then turned around and retraced his steps to the stairwell, checking every room again and dreading any horror he might have missed. No crazed man-eater jumped out at him. Once he reached the landing, he projected the light down and then upstairs.

' _Up. Ms. Armstrong said to go up.'_

His steps creaked in the silence like an intruder as he started his ascent. He considered calling out names, but clamped down on the urge. He didn't know who – if anyone – would or could answer it. Maybe the only ones still alive were the crazed cannibals. Maybe everyone else was dead already, or as good as.

"No, Ms. Armstrong's alive," he whispered himself, then shut up as his words echoed around him. _'She can't be the odd one out. It's mathematical. Yes. Yes. They're alive. She's fine.'_

He clung to that thought as the steps lead him ever higher. On the third landing, the light on his wrist illuminated darker, crouched silhouettes and hungry eyes in the receding shadows, but they were gone a moment later. Hog went for his gun, but realized he hadn't picked it up. Pressing his back against the wall, he braced the assault rifle awkwardly with one arm, the other extended to make the light reach as far as possible.

When, after a minute, the only sound was that of his heart hammering against his ribcage, Hog continued his ascent, wincing every time the stairs creaked under his weight.

He found Jim Wilkins dead on the stairs between the fourth and fifth floor, sprawled one ramp down from the barricade of couches and desks blocking off the fifth floor's landing. Under the signs of plague and the dried blood darkening his face and hands, the hallmark of a cannibal, Hog recognized the familiar signs of blunt instrument beating, a staple of Vault Security in the privacy of the security station. They'd never gone as far as breaking the victim's neck, but falling from the stairs could be behind that.

Hog knelt down and tentatively tried to close the young man's eyes, but the rigor mortis rejected that simple gesture. Hog remembered Jim as a boy his age filled with laughter and mischief, and he was wondering if his sister Janice knew, if she'd witnessed, when he heard movement from upstairs.

The Pip-Boy's light whipped to the barricade and seeped through the gaps. It elicited a pained gasp, followed by muffled curses. That was the first crack in the dam. Moments later, coughs and more hushed, rasping voices reached his ears in one indiscernible mix.

Hog approached the barricade with leaden feet, then froze when he saw and felt eyes watching him through the gaps.

"H-Hey." He cleared his sore throat and took another step. "Hey. it's Hogarth. Open up!"

The voices and the creaks of steps redoubled in volume after a brief, stunned pause, or maybe more just joined in. That ought to be a good sign. Maybe. Unless they had all turned to cannibalism. A smart rapping of metal on metal commanded silence. A minute later, a man's head poked out in the space between the barricade and the ceiling, shielding his eyes from the light with a hand.

"Sooty?"

Hog cringed, but nodded. Not that the man could see him, with the light glaring in his face. "It's me, Officer O'Brien. Hogarth."

"You – you're here? Alone?" He barked a cough, disappearing behind the barrier for a moment. "Where's your father?!"

Hog cast the light down the stairwell and made sure the guards hadn't followed him in, then stepped closer. "I don't know where James is," he said, bludgeoning past the point, "and I haven't joined Ashur's army to enact my wicked vengeance upon the rest of you, if that's what you're all thinking. I've come with… a friend." He hesitated, unsure in which category Wernher fell after the confrontation on the train, then pushed that concern aside as well. He'd deal with that later. "There's a revolt brewing. This place will explode in just a few days. I'm here to get you out."

Disbelief visibly slackened O'Brien's gaunt face and he disappeared before he could insist they let him in. As the intelligible echoes of a muffled conversation reached him, Hog looked back at Jim Wilkins' body and felt a familiar suspicion creep up his back.

Would they try to brain him like they did Jim, cannibals or not? Hog didn't shy away from that question. They clearly had some weapons, maybe clubs made from chair legs and pipes or even coiled wire blades from bed frames. But would they? Could he trust them? If it was only Amata, or even Jonas and Gomez, the answer would be yes, a hundred times over, but with the Overseer in charge…

A table from the barricade was dislodged, then another. A passage appeared, then the Vaulties retreated away from the cone of light. A single figure approached, every odd step punctuated by the _tap-tap_ of a cane. Hog angled the light away so that the glare wouldn't hide him and blind the newcomer.

Wally Mack looked like he'd seen better days. Gaunt and slightly hunched over, the plague had yet to ravage his face to the point of being unrecognizable, but he leaned on his cane like he never had before. The suit over his bad knee had been cut off, and the damaged joint was swollen an angry purple. Overall, he looked like he was about to keel over and never get up again.

"Hogarth." His eyes raked him from head to toe, lingering on his gear and face. "You're alive. You look like you're doing well for yourself."

"Spare me the dressing down, Snake. I already got it from Gomez."

Wally was about to reply something else, but paused at the name. His raised hand silenced any question from his side of the barricade before they could be voiced. "You've met Officer Gomez?" Hog heard the rest of the question and for a moment he pitied him. It was only a moment, though. This was Wally fucking Mack.

"Gomez, Jonas, Mary Holden, and some thirty others. They're safe now." _'Or safer than before. Safer than here. Safer than being turned into green, hulking monstrosities.'_ "Your dad didn't make it. Nor did Paul. I'm sorry."

Wally's shoulders drooped. He let out a pained sigh. "Then he's with my brother and mother now, and Paul with his father. Come on in, before the plagued seize the chance."

Wally hobbled back behind the barricade and Hog followed after a moment. The suffused glow and his Pip-Boy revealed a pressed crowd in tattered Vault blues waiting on the other side, wide-eyed and near starvation. The plague exerted a varying grip on all of them, but there wasn't one who didn't sport black boils or a chronic cough. Some were so transfigured, he just didn't recognize them.

They all parted before Wally and stepped further back when Hog looked in their direction, pressing against the walls and shielding their eyes from the bobbing light at his wrist. Mothers kept their children back and some of the men try to project a tough image, but the bones jutting under their papery skin and the shrunken postures made the result only sad and worrying to behold.

There were nearly a hundred of them clogged on the landing and in the corridor. Others watched from the doorways. Hog tracked their hands, but they were either empty or held onto rusted tins and sporks licked clean of any morsel of food. A few proffered them to Hog, begging. More stared at his face, at his clothes. None missed the rifle he held pointed to the ground.

Hog remained silent as he followed Wally slow pace, his single, pressing question glued to the roof of his mouth before this view of misery. What was worse, a small, petty part of him gloated every time he recognized someone who'd exploited his pariah status, or who'd spoken ill of him in the two years after the incident and even before. Even the weak groans, coughs, and sobbing pleads for food, water, and mercy echoing out of rooms from the bedridden and dying didn't silence that voice, even as each hammered a nail into his gut.

The voice fell silent only when Hog spotted Janice Wilkins trying to console a young Monica Kendall. The girl, curled up in a small, too small bony ball, asked like a broken record for her mother. The woman Hog had just suffocated only a few floors downstairs.

' _It was an accident,'_ he tried to tell himself as he shrugged off his pack and handed some of his molerat meat to Janice. _'I didn't mean to.'_

"I'm sorry."

Janice snatched the piece of dried meat from his hand, giving no sign she'd even heard him, and nibbled at it before she pushed the rest against Monica's parched lips, encouraging the girl to feed. Hog could almost feel the collective eye that had been fixed on him shift its weight to that single strip of meat. Even Wally, a couple steps ahead, stopped.

"You have food?" he asked, hunger and worry tingeing his voice as he studied Hog and the crowd in turn. "Water?!"

"Some," Hog admitted. A ripple went through the Vaulties, as if he'd broken another taboo there and then. Glances were exchanged, skinny limbs tensed, stomachs growled, and swollen tongues licked dry lips. Hog's eyes found Officers O'Brien and Park nearby and zeroed on the iron pipes in their white-knuckled grips.

The muzzle of his rifle inched up. "And I will share. On my terms. Women and children first, then the rest. How many pregnants are here?"

Wally's cane tapped the floor as he shifted and the crowd with him. Someone started to sob. Some cursed. Food – and walking over him to get it - took a sudden backseat to grief.

"None," Wally said softly when Hog asked again. "Those the Doctor didn't pick for the hazmat suits were forced to miscarry."

Hog's thoughts ground to a horrified halt. The dam shook from another crack. Before he could speak, because he could even formulate a coherent thought, their words poured through.

"S-she said one breath of this air, a-and the babies were dead a-anyway," Janice sniffled nearby, arms wrapped around little Monica. No tears came down, however. She was too dehydrated for that. "T-that miscarriage was a m-mercy."

"They just wanted to put everyone to work immediately on the assembly lines," a very pale Steve Armstrong, one of Stanley's many nephews, bit through gritted, yellowed teeth. "Men, women, and children. Whole lot of good it did. We all got sick in less than a week and they crammed us up here."

"The women that Doctor bitch picked got their lucky break," Officer Park said, undaunted by several withering looks, Wally's included. "Not as lucky as you though, Mitchell."

Another crack. This one widened under the onslaught of a hundred's people worth of raw emotion avalanching on him. "Your father is the only reason we're all dying here!"

Wally's cane rapped against the floor, a call to order that went ignored by more and more rising voices. "Yeah, your daddy brings the Talon Company into the Vault, and you're the only one who gets out? Well, that's one fucking coincidence!"

"Look at him! He's dressed like one of the slavers! I say –"

 _BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Monica and other children cried at the bark of Hog's assault rifle. The few angry souls who were getting ideas backed away like scaredy-cats. People ducked, covered their heads. A little rain of dust and grime landed on Hog's shoulder.

"I didn't have anything to do with James' plan!" Hog exploded as the dam crumbled. "I didn't ask – no, you know what? I'm done justifying myself to you fucking ingrates. You took everything from me! My rights, my future, my chance to have a family, but I'm here! I've nearly died to give you ungrateful fucks a chance in this fucked-up world. Good people who didn't owe you shit have died, 'cause they believed saving people like you from slavery was the right thing! I've sacrificed my own fucking humanity, and you don't even give me the benefit of the doubt? Fuck you and fuck your taboos! You and this place deserve each other."

Chest heaving, mind addled by the fumes of resentment, Hog upturned his backpack at Janice and Monica's feet, then tossed the explosive lunchboxes and anything that wasn't food or water back in and hiked it up his shoulder. His anger cracked at the terrified look on little Monica Kendall's face, so he looked at Janice Wilkins instead.

"I'm sorry for your brother. Split it up as you see fit, and if any of you have a problem with it, then we're _not_ going to have words." He shot a withering glare at the crowd, daring any of them to speak up, "Is Amata here?"

When Wally didn't deign to answer, Hog whipped around with more venom on his lips, only to pause. The Vault's golden boy stared at him with hooded, defeated eyes that belonged to a man three times his age. Gone was the cunning, manipulative glint from the Vault days, the nonchalant countenance of the top dog in the kennel.

Wally rubbed his ring finger, where only the faintest imprint hinted at the ring that was supposed to be there.

"Come with me."

The Pitt's gloom poured into the room from a smashed, unboarded window, outlining a withered, wrinkled corpse under a small pile of filthy sheets. The plague had deformed and eaten at the near-skeletal body so much, Hog couldn't even begin to tell his ethnicity, much less his identity. He reeled back from overpowering stench of waste and sickness, but Wally walked in as if it didn't bother him.

The three of them, living and dead, were the only ones present. "Wally, _where_ is Amata?"

Wally stared out of the window. In the distance, through gaps in the cityscape, the Allegheny flowed.

"She's dead," Wally whispered. "They're dead."

Cold numbed his body as if he'd just plunged into icy river water. His hand was trembling as he grabbed Wally by the scruff of his suit. "Don't lie to me, Tunnel Snake. Not about her!"

Wally closed his eyes. "She tried to escape from the hospital," he wheezed out between coughs, voice thick with misery. "She wouldn't let the Doctor take our children, so she ran for the trains." A single tear rolled down his cheek and his eyelids inched open. Hog's grip faltered. He looked away when he saw a hint of the truth he couldn't bear in his eyes.

Over Wally's shoulder, the Allegheny beckoned, calling out to him with her six-year-old voice, innocent and light.

 _I'll never forsake you as long as I live._

"I was on the roof when – when it happened. They cornered her on the bridge, right up to the edge, and then…" Wally's voice broke. He swallowed. His hand wouldn't stop shaking on Hog's shoulder. "And then…"

" – a cable snapped. She fell into the river."

Hog felt his lips move, but the words came out of their own volition. As his vision started to blur, Wally stiffened, stunned.

"How did you know?"

Hog barely heard him. Shrill wails of children tore into his brain, growing louder even as he turned away from Wally and the river. A huge dog howled in agony, writhing alone in a sewer. Hog's throat was hoarse and his fingers hurt as they dug into his scalp, trying to grab the alien, familiar voices and pull them out. Louder than them all were Amata's voice and the silent shattering of a lifelong promise.

 _I'll never forsake you as long as I live._

There were voices in the periphery too, faint, real voices and notes of alarm pouring through from outside, but their presence faded when the bedroom door ground shut. The floor creaked in tune with Wally's hobbling pace. The cripple stopped just out of lashing range from the corner Hog had retreated to trying to flee from the voices in his head.

For a while, the only sound was that of Hog's whistling breaths, distant coughs, and an approaching stampede of running steps, laughs, and small arms fire. Then Wally spoke, a slow and grieving rasp that demanded to be heard.

"I loved her." Hog looked up and Wally met his bloodshot eyes with the look of someone with nothing left to lose. "I know it was a political marriage, but I loved her since I was twelve. Since before I knew what love was. I figured…" He paused, searching for the right words. The gunfire grew closer, higher. "I figured she'd grow to care for me, once the children were born. That maybe, one day, she'd love me back, and we'd be a real family."

The slow tapping of his cane edged closer to the door. "I loved Amata with all of my heart. But I wasn't you."

The door creaked open, then closed after him, yet Hogarth realized he wasn't alone. The corpse's head had turned his way at some point, neck craned up against the weight of the world as if to tell _I'm still here_. His eyes were open. At the center of those sunken orbits, two pinpricks sharing Amata's brown glared at him with more hate than any man could possibly muster.

"It's your fault," the Overseer squawked. "Your fault. Amata… If I'd never let you and your father into the Vault… my daughter would still be alive."

Hog fled, chased by Alphonse's curses even when the drone of a hundred voices all around him drowned his weak voice. People parted and flowed around him like river water around the pylon of a bridge. Then he was past the barricade, on the steps, but the masked figures there, with their guns smelling of fresh gunpowder, didn't let him through.

They spoke, asked, snarled, demanded, then their hands were on him. One grabbed the dog tags around his neck and snapped the cord as more hands pushed and tried to pin him against the wall. Hog's foot connected with a chest and a brief cry of pain and surprise turned into an echoing shout, falling fast.

The butt of a rifle rose and fell, denting his skull and snapping his head back into the wall. The second blow was distant, as if the first blow had stuffed his head with padding. He didn't even feel the third, nor the fourth, or the ones after that.


	21. Foundry VI: The Bottom of the Hole

**Foundry VI: The Bottom of the Hole**

"Sun's up, Terence. Or you fancy _Hogarth_ more?"

Duke's blighted face was the first thing Hog saw after he was kicked awake. There was something behind his pale eyes that reminded him of the days he'd spent in the Vault's calaboose, something that during his last weeks on the surface had become an inseparable companion.

Fear. He smelled it. Almost _tasted_ it on his tongue, swirling around his canines.

Hog blinked at the foreign sensations, trying to orient himself. Prison cells had a certain quality that transcended time and space, surface or underground, but the musty hole, choking stench, the chains binding his wrists over his head, even being stripped down to his undies took a backseat when memories slipped past the initial grogginess and disorientation.

Amata was dead. Drowned in the river. He wanted to believe otherwise, that it was all a lengthy, detailed, and perverse hallucination born of exhaustion and a poor diet, and that at any moment he'd just wake up on his cot in the belly of Vault 101, but his body was possessed by the certainty that Wally wasn't lying. It stomped out any attempt at denial.

Hog blinked again and looked down at himself, searching for... something. He felt the screams bubbling up in his chest, only his throat wouldn't articulate them. He wanted to cry, but his eyes remained dry, lids pulled halfway down by encrusted blood. It was like all the sorrow, grief, and anger had been siphoned behind an unbreakable barrier. All he could do was watch them swirl in a maelstrom begging only to be let out and slam his palms against it.

Feeling it all just out of reach scared him more than the armed slaver before him.

"Look at me. Look at me!" There was a knife at his throat now. Duke's breath was foul with anger and impatience. "You two pulled a fast one on me, but playtime's over. Now you'll tell me where that one-eyed cripple has got his hidey-hole, and I'll make it quick for you. The Hole doesn't take well to grinders and scabs killing bosses. You kicked one too many down that stairwell."

"W-What have you done to me?" He could still hear his skull cracking under the rifle butts, but only the dried blood slathering half his face attested to that ever happening. A concussion? Was it drugs? Had they drugged him?

"Mex's boys must've cracked your skull pretty bad," Duke said after a moment, then smiled a self-reassuring, cruel smile, "and trust me, that's got nothing on what's to come. Faydra has a special event planned all for you. But I can make it end right now. One slash. Just tell me where Wernher is!"

Duke was, no, felt like a ten-year-old seeing that there was a party and gifts waiting for him in the Vault's cafeteria, not some mean surprise by Butch and the Snakes. Eagerness and expectation meshing with lingering fear. That memory, Hog's own, pulsated vivid for a moment, then came apart at the seams, sinking down into the recesses of his mind.

' _Why this? Why now? What's happening to me?!"_

" _ **You're filtering his emotions through what is familiar to you. Memories. Thoughts. Helps you understand them. Now use that fear."**_

Hog hacked as Duke punched him in the belly and grabbed him by an ear, twisting it and lifting his chin up. The metal was cold against his neck, but his abdomen barely smarted. "Speak, or you'll wish you were trog chow by the time I'm through with you!"

An image flashed in Hog's mind then. An old man staring down from a high-backed throne. A ravaged face on top of old power armor marked like a tribal idol. Duke's fear spiked again. Hog chortled.

"You won't be too long after me when Ashur gets word of your fuckup, will you? Tut-tut, letting public enemy number one back in, right under your nose."

He was sure Duke would knife him in the neck there and then. That was alright. He could have probably kneed him in the crotch and kicked him away in the few moments it took his words to sink in, but he didn't. He just waited for the blade to sink.

The air _cracked_ inches away from his face instead. Duke was jerked back. His hands flew up, dropping the knife, grasping at the whip coiled around his throat like a black snake a more pressing priority.

" _ **Foolish pup. You aren't meant to die here."**_

"The rules, Duke? Be a good boy and spell 'em."

The tiniest croak slipped out of Duke's throat as his fingers dug and clawed for breathing space. His face quickly assumed a distinct shade of purple. The heavy stomp of boots followed just on the heels of a wave of enjoyment and pride for a shot well aimed. Hog closed his eyes against the blurry images of a shooting range and the satisfying plink of pellets on metal.

"No. Touchin'. My. Gladiators."

The whip uncoiled and Duke fell on all fours, gasping and spitting. Faydra toppled him on one side with the steel-capped point of her boot, then sauntered up to Hog, giving his chain a good yank.

"And you, Vault Boy. You've gathered quite a bit of a crowd. Can you hear them? They're just above us. Here to see the rat turned boss turned pit dog fight to the death." She smiled. "Why, your friends became quite chatty when it was you or water. Even Lord Ashur came down from Haven after he heard your sob story." She patted his cheek, then the whip _hissed_ and _cracked_ and Duke howled in pain. "Well, not all of it, but there'll be time later for that. Now be a darlin' and entertain us a spell. Why, win, and you'll have the honor of tellin' Lord Ashur everythin' from your live lips."

Faydra and two of her goons pulled him through poorly lit corridors and past more cells resounding with guttural screams or echoing silence. Hogarth staggered behind them, too overwhelmed by flashes of hunger and hate and pain to even think of planting his feet. Under it all, like a tidal wave gathering up before crashing onto the shore, a buzz grew, composed of voices and thoughts unified under one will and desire.

Kill. Maim. Eat. Bloodshed. _Fun_.

A drop of pity rippled the surface of that churning, burning maelstrom. The weight of bindings fell from his wrist, their rattle on the floor marked by the _click_ of bullets being chambered and muzzles levelled at him. Weapons of all sizes and type were arrayed before him, hanging or strewn across metal tables. Blades, maces, cudgels, axes, spikes, spears, cleavers, and many more; anything but guns. A bowed figure regarded him with eyes of black, congealed blood, gender and age burned away by a fire that left its flesh one cooked, blistering scar. It reminded Hogarth of overcooked bacon.

"Another kid… Choose your weapon," it rasped with toothless gums. A non-feral ghoul. When Hog didn't make a move, hands shaking, it just shrugged, and the pity sunk under a sea of practiced indifference. "Just do it. Before they do it for you."

Not it. He. Hog had a glimpse of a straight-backed man on the helm of a ship, shouting at a crew heaving a net bursting with fish. A fisherman. A captain. Now old and broken, chained underground, a hundred miles away from his sea, cleaning weapons from the blood and guts of dead people. A fledging sense of kinship almost made Hog reach out for that leathery, worn hand. The muzzle that poked into his back shattered the moment, and the bloodlust of a hundred minds in tune flooded over him again, pulling him under.

"Pick a weapon, rat," Faydra hissed into his ear, adding her two cents to the chorus and tipping the balance. His hands complied and moved on their own, spurred into action by a collective will beating down on his own. The spiked knuckles fit like a glove.

The voice answered his wordless, building panic.

" _ **When I walled off your emotions, your basic instincts were repressed as well. A temporary drawback that's left you vulnerable to what you're missing. Now you're incorporating their bloodlust as your own. A natural response."**_

' _You've done this to me? You've – You -! Who the fuck do you think you are?!'_

" _ **Good. Feel it. Channel it. I couldn't let you fall apart on me over one female, pup. I've been waiting for too long for one of you to awake."**_

' _When I get my hands on you -!'_

" _ **First you have to survive. Prevail. Show me that I didn't waste a century waiting for you."**_

Faydra and her goons were replaced by more ghouls. They escorted him to a spiked, blood-rusted gate that opened into a large, irregular pit dug in the middle of a hockey field. He found himself following their raspy commands before he could even process them. His mind remained sluggish, jumping between shock and numbness as his body acted independently, stretching and limbering up, piloted by the collective desire of the crowd. Hundreds were ammassed on the old stands, shouting and betting and cursing. Up above, the Pitt's leaden sky watched down through the broken roof, pouring in a light drizzle that hit him like nails.

Toxic waste mixed with the drizzle, dripping from barrels hanging several feet off the ground in cocoons of chains. His skin began to itch at the sight and warmth spread deeper from every spot the rain touched.

' _What have you done to me?!'_

" _ **This is all you, pup. You've been awake since the moment you were injected. Now, you're becoming aware of your Legacy. You've become more than these leftovers, these doomed meat sacks. The radiation that harms and destroys their bodies will make you stronger, in ways that naïve female, Moira Brown, can't even begin to understand."**_

Faydra cawed and crowed from speakers, but her words were lost in the answering cheer from the crowd and the deafening shriek of the gates before him rising, echoed by many more. A single word beat into his brain and ears like drums, chanted religiously by voices and minds alike.

 _Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill._

Underneath that, the fear, anxiety, excitement, and panic from the other gladiators pushed or rushing into the Hole were just flickering flames that disappeared the moment he looked away from one to the other. Men and women in patchwork armor or leather harnesses, clutching at their weapons like lifelines. Some stood still, wide-eyed and riveted to the ground by the same pressure Hog felt tenfolds, a hundred times, shaking his mind like a snow globe. A few, all of them armored, wielded their weapons with grim determination, faces cracking masks of indifference, or lusting in anticipation. Their eyes and bodies were turned to a podium, dominating both the stands and the slaughtering grounds.

Ashur watched from there, resplendent and confident in his suit of power armor and brahmin skulls. Hog's mind and body found common ground for what felt like the first time in ages. He met the Pitt Lord's eyes as he looked down at him and held it.

" _ **There's your target. He took her away from you. Now take everything away from him."**_

Ashur lifted one arm, then let it fall, slashing the air. The crowd roared. Chains rattled and the toxic barrels slammed down all over the arena, rolling around and vomiting gunk from widening cracks.

" _ **But first, these meat sacks. Deal with them."**_

' _No. Enough death.'_ Hog's voice was just a whisper under the deluge of homicidal instinct pumping every muscle in his body into overdrive, flooding through his veins. A prisoner behind his own eyes, he watched as the spikes adorning his knuckles tore and crashed into the chest and belly of the nearest unfortunate to turn his way with a knife. He smelled the fresh blood and ruptured intestines, felt the vibrations with every blow traveling up his arms, but barely noticed the blade slicing his forearms as the slave succumbed to his punches.

" _ **They are nothing. Dregs of a time long past. Leftovers from a feast. Weak, crippled runts, pawing blindly, feeding on their own Pack to survive just another day. No purpose. No Unity. You are more. So much more."**_

' _No. Stop it. Let me stop!'_

A gladiator swung a pickaxe at him from behind. His body dodged to the side without even looking. The pickaxe sent debris and sparks flying as his body swung around for a comeback. He smelled the gladiator's fear and his voiding bowels as the spikes punched through the thin bone of his nape and crushed the upper vertebras and the spinal cord underneath.

" _ **I'm only acting as your Guardian here. This is all you. The purest you, bereft of the restraints and fears and checks of your upbringing."**_

' _I'm better than this. I can be better than this.'_

The warmth of radiation increased to a scalding, feverish heat. His hands slammed some poor bastard's face into the top of one of the toxic barrels, leaving a wide smear of blood. His face hurt and pulled with how wide and deep he was grinning.

" _ **You tried. She died. When you can't beat them, join them. Be better at their own game. Overwhelm them, and make them yours. Nobody will be able to stop you."**_

The disfigured sod crumpled at his feet, whining and convulsing as arterial blood spurted from the ruin of pulp and radiation burns that was his face. The chains holding the barrel were light and wet in his hands as he wrapped them around the slave's neck and _pulled_. The crunch of snapping bones was sickeningly melodious. The flopping corpse, merely an afterthought.

He stood there, feet burning and regenerating in the toxic waste, head tilted high to let the radioactive rain clean the blood from his face. He let the exhilarating cries and cheers of the audience wash over him and edge him on. They drowned that nagging, weak voice that had been in control most of his life, silencing the whispers that this mayhem and bloodshed wasn't what he was born for, that it wasn't right or what he'd fantasized about every time the 101s stomped on his life and then scraped him away from the soles of their regulation boots like shit.

That voice, that part of him, he realized with contempt, was afraid. Afraid of himself, of what he could do. Behind a childish façade of abrasiveness, it craved recognition and acceptance. He saw it so clearly now. It had made him a rat scampering in the dark tunnels of the Vault, too afraid to take what could have been his, what should have been his, by right of intellect and might. The recognition of his father, the respect and obedience of the 101s, the affection of the woman he hadn't dared love, but now knew had loved the pitiful, weak him back anyway.

He threw his head back. Laughter bubbled up in his chest and roared out. It challenged the crowd, the rain, the whole blasted wasteland and God Almighty to put him down, to drown him, to suffocate and silence him. Let them try.

Let them fail to stop the Master.

A dog's echoing howl joined into the cacophony, the canine's heart beating in rhythm with his own. Slit eyes a glowing yellow raked him behind the bent, welded bars of a large drainage pipe jutting out into the Hole. The Master watched himself through those eyes, smelled his own euphoria through the dog's wet nostrils. He felt the beast's chest heave and his fur stand on edge, electrified.

Through his servant's eyes, he saw the last gladiator thrust at his exposed back with a spear. A desperate blow from a scrawny, wide-eyed human female, terribly, embarrassingly slow. Barking laughter, the Master spun around and backhanded her across the face. The spikes gouged out one brown eye and tore open her cheek, shredding warm, mocha skin, then the spear was in his hands. The butt slammed into her solar plexus, cutting off her scream into a choking gasp. The broomstick cracked and the shaft broke in two on his knee. He stood over the meat sack deserving no pity, tall and bursting with power, her judge, jury, executioner, and God.

" _ **You're ready. Stop running from what you are. Confront it, embrace it, and go for its throat!"**_

The mental barrier vanished in the time between two thoughts. Every emotion his servant had repressed in the dark corners of his vessel's mind jumped out to make tehmselves at home again. All the bloodlust and euphoria shattered, crumbled, and disappeared, drained down and dragging the Master with it. The world faded in, then out, then in again, dulled by the buzz in his ears. He was on his knees, his forehead kissing the blood-soaked dirt, body buckling and hiccupping as tears burned a path down his face with a vengeance of anguish and grief too vast to grasp. Images flashed through his mind, too many and too fast to distinguish. Their sharp edges carved paths, leaving only molten agony flowing in their wake.

Inside his mind, the dog - his servant, his Guardian - snarled and gnashed its teeth, convulsing against the bars of the drainage pipe. It fought back and lashed out, trying to mend again the same barrier it had torn down too soon, trying to restore control to its Master. Again and again, it failed, and the waves of grief and pain pushed it away, isolating his mind within a storm of darkness and pain. They flaked and stripped him until they weren't wailing on the Master, rather on Hog, a curled-up boy huddled in a corner and screaming for his security blanket.

0 * TTL * 0

He couldn't do it. He couldn't face it. Couldn't face her. It was too much, and he was too weak and pitiful, too much of a coward. Better it be over, for good. Then the pain and grief and anguish would be over too, just… gone. Dying seemed like a bargain compared to carrying on like this a moment longer.

That conclusion didn't grant him peace, just enough hollowness to drape around his shivering mind like a wet towel, waiting everything out. Sound faded. A dull, sterile hue blanketed the world outside his head, numbing his body to anything and anyone but the drizzle plinking off him a hundred drops a second.

An impossibly large silhouette, more mutated bear than man, towered over him. He sent vibrations shaking up Hog's prone body with every breath, oozing killing intent and a profound, feral joy in what he was. Hog envied him, brutal killer that he was, but he soon lost his interest, even as the blocky, spinning axe in paw-hands revved up. The bear-man lifted it up over his head. Hog's chin bobbed down, to the jagged half of a broomstick that had made itself cozy in the lower right of his abdomen, stinging somewhat. Then his head lolled to the side.

Through the bars of the drainage pipe, the Guardian's yellow eyes held a pain similar to the one pressing down on his every sense, barely held at bay. It blinked and an alien thought wormed its way through Hog's eroding, safe mental island, nudging the child at its core. A soft growl quietened his mental screaming. What was he screaming for, anyway? Who was there to listen? It wasn't like anyone but the dog could hear him, and the beast certainly didn't care.

Staring in those eyes was like watching a curtain he'd been poking holes into for a while give up from too much abuse, revealing the predictable truth behind in all its decadent splendor _'It was you, all along. The taunts, the provocations, –'_

" _ **I was saving your pathetic human life. Trying to grow you a spine and lick the amniotic fluid off your eyes. So much potential, wasted. And all over a single female."**_

As far as manipulation attempt went, it was pretty weak. Predictable. Wernher was better at it, and that was without the backdoor into his head. Hog told as much to the dog.

" _ **You're not going to survive a blow like that. Not like you are. But the Master can. You just had a glimpse of what you can be. A true god among mortals. Just rebuild the barrier and let him come out."**_

' _I can?'_

 _ **"When he's in control, you can do anything, if you want to. Hunt them, one by one. All of them. Ashur. Burke. James. Make them fear you. Put them in awe. Make them suffer."**_

'… _What's the point? Ten more will crop up in their place. It won't bring Amata back.'_ Silence was the dog's answer. All around him, every word corroded the shroud of hollow indifference between him and the ugly truth waiting to break him on its knee for good. Emotions were such nasty things. _'Will it? I mean, if I listen to you and rev up this Master-God machine, can I bring her back?'_

" _ **No."**_

' _So much for anything, huh?'_ He remembered he had eyes. Like, real, physical, squishy eyes. The world through them moved like it was wading through very thick molasses, a thousand yards away. He could see every spinning blade of the auto-ax and the arc that would bury them into his skull. _'I'm tired, dog. All this death, and for what? Only more death. Death for one more day alive. Death for one more mile. Death for fun. I, part of me anyway, enjoyed that wanton slaughter. I'm not that different from the scum the Sheriff reviles so much. He'd probably cap me if he was here right now.'_

" _ **Then bring him out. You'll thrive. Everyone will. Put your humanity to sleep and fulfill the Legacy."**_

' _No.'_

Rain plinked on his pupils, forcing him to blink. The spinning blades were kind of pretty. Then it was time for the dog to swing back.

" _ **You're just like your father. The failure youngling of a failure. He gave up too when it was time to be more than a mewling pup. More than just another human. All for a promise he ended up breaking anyway. Humans."**_

That… stung. Truth always did, he supposed. But more than the direct comparison with James, more than the deeper truth he felt hidden beneath those words – all things he honestly couldn't bring himself to care for at the moment - it was the mention of a broken promise that hit close to home. Why did it? He felt it had something to do with Amata, but the answer eluded him, just like her face did. He stared out of his safe island then, and mouthed a question.

The churning darkness all around him answered, closing in and silencing the dog. Curious despite himself and really, he was about to buy it anyway, Hog reached out beyond the crumbling confines of stale sanity with a finger, dipping it in.

 _\- too young to understand the pastor's sermon at their first burning service. "Never forsake me and I'll never forsake you. I'll never forsake you as long as I live." They repeated the words with the adults, then promised each other, serious and grave as only children could be. The word was such a mouthful, but it stuck in their six-year-old brains' -_

He remembered her face. He remembered that too, and that years later, Amata and he learned they kind of turned the pastor's message on its head in a way, addressing each other with words meant only from man to divinity. They'd shared a laugh over that.

 _I'll never forsake you as long as I live._ All five seconds left of it. He dipped another finger and her last words to him pierced the silence.

Run, she'd said. Amata had wanted him to live. Wouldn't dying mean… betraying her?

All the grief and pain and sadness over her death, rooted in every single moment they shared, terrified him. He could barely deal and come to terms, maybe, with two fingers-dips worth of it. That maelstrom would swallow him, shatter him, leaving a drooling husk behind. Maybe that was what he deserved. That wouldn't count as living, probably.

Maybe the dog did have the right idea. Better feel nothing, if only for a little while. At least until there weren't bear-sized men about to murder him, or somesuch.

Admittedly, that might take more than a little while.

Hog _willed_ it and the barriers came up, stronger than before. They swept up and coalesced the maelstrom into a tight, sealed ball in his palm, leaving only tendrils and wisps to float in the vast and empty expanse of his mind. Finding the link to the dog next was easier and more natural than breathing. Its awe was almost palpable.

' _Distraction, please.'_

"... _ **Yes, Master."**_

' _Hogarth. Or Hog. I'm not him. Whatever he is.'_

The groan and shriek of bending, rusted metal bars under the impact of the big, damn dog startled the bear-man. A primeval part of his mutated brain probably registered the protective, malicious intent pouring from the beast in waves. It wasn't much, but enough for the spinning ax-blades to miss Hog's head. Toxic dirt flew in every direction. The auto-ax bounced up in bear-man's meaty hands.

Rolling around with half a foot of broomstick in his gut hurt, but not as much as he'd expected. He probably had to thank the half-blind, fully dead gladiator woman for that little gift. Seemed fair, since he'd almost skewered her with two of those. Removing it hurt enough to make him falter. For a moment, his control slipped, and the renewed, pounding orgy of demanding clamor from the Hole's audience echoed in his blood, supplying for missing instincts. Long enough for the gory broomstick to find a new home through soft hollow of bear-man' knee.

Bear-man howled louder than the dog and let go of the auto-ax, pawing at his knee. The heavy tool fell blades-first into the dirt, skidded, and tore through the closest chunk of meat with abandon. Namely, bear-man's other leg.

The crowd loved it. Faydra swore on the mic. The drainage pipe groaned with another impact and the bars snapped, delivering a tumbling, huge mass of sewage-soaked fur into the gladiatorial arena.

For long, heady moments, silence reigned, threatened only by the dying gasps rising from the toxic sands. Surprise hamstrung the collective bloodlust, easing the pounding pressure on Hog's perception. In that lull, he breathed in, tightening his leash on the struggling, uncaring, bloodthirsty, megalomaniac… Master-thing he'd become for the wildest moments of his entire life. The thing the dog wanted him to become full-time. A shiver ran up his arm as said dog's coarse tongue licked his palm.

" _ **The manling has a litter-brother."**_

Two pairs of eyes, one slit and yellow, the other dark brown and flecked with green, turned on another bear-man, this one possibly even larger than the one bleeding out nearby. Hog studied the muzzle hanging limply in his hands and the tank strapped to his bare, hairy chest with narrowed eyes. His nose crinkled at the waft of burning flesh from a few man-pyres not too far off. He must have been pretty out of it to have missed those. Through the dog's nose, the smell was more… enticing. He really couldn't tell if the growling stomach was the dog's or his.

The bear-man brothers weren't gladiators. A flamethrower against a knife or, looking down at his red hands, spiked knuckles? That was just cheating. A mop-up crew, then. Butchers. Executioners. Reaching out with his new senses, he judged there were two or three more other gladiators in different stages of alive, strewn around the Hole. One was likely exaggerating a flesh-wound, biding her time for an ambush.

He wondered if he could influence the flamethrower-toting bear-man. Dog said he could do anything, after all. Closing his eyes and feeling around for his rabid, fear-stricken mind, Hog willed him to sleep. Drop the muzzle. Dance a little jig. After a long moment, he lifted an eyelid. Nothing. No, not nothing. From the angle of the muzzle, the bear-man was recovering from the shock of seeing his brother cut down, or the dog barge in, or whatever psychic bullshit was going on.

' _You and I have different definitions of anything, dog. Do you even have a name? Dog and Guardian don't really roll off the tongue.'_

" _ **The Alpha, your ancestor, used to call me Dogmeat."**_

'… _Jesus. Poor taste runs in the family. Let's take bear-two down without killing him.'_

If ripping a foot of wood from his gut made him falter, a quick bath in burning fuel made him almost black out. If it wasn't for the mental link with Dogmeat shouldering some of the pain on the furball and his acquired heightened threshold, he'd certainly have, twice over. As it was, he was left flailing and rolling on the ground, trying to snuff out the flames and protect his eyes, as Dogmeat nearly ripped bear-two's arm out at the elbow with a single bite. The next crushed his throat. So much for a non-lethal takedown.

He rolled up on all fours, then stumbled to his feet. His underwear was gone, burned to nothing, leaving him stark naked, wheezing, and gritting his teeth into dust as half the flesh on his body, including the sensitive bits, took a swing at the whole regeneration game. Right then, Hog didn't feel much pity for the bear-man butcher choking and bleeding out on the soaked sands. Truth be told, other than the pain, the heady taste of blood in Dogmeat's mouth, and the chaos of surprise-shock-anger-fear-disappointment from the audience, he didn't feel much of anything.

' _I see. So this is how it's going to be. Complete mental breakdown or a forced, emotional cripple.'_ He shrugged. Sounded fitting.

He silenced Dogmeat's thought-suggestion to take a walk on the wild side before it could even properly form, then turned to stare up at the VIP box and the Lord of The Pitt brooding there. Hog crossed his arms over his healing chest, straight-backed and pushing down any hint of shame from standing in even less than his birthday suit before the vilest collection of raiders, slavers, kidnappers, and sexual abusers he could picture. The pulling and itching of muscles and tissue on his face alone told him that he'd probably make a ghoul look pretty if he stood beside him.

Good.

"Well? I won. This farce is over, Ashur. We're overdue for a chat, you and I."

0 = TTL = 0

 _My thanks to_ _ **Paladin Bailey, DmCrebel25, The Desert Dancer, ScrimshawPen, Aegon Blacksteel, Master Doom Maker (x2), Alternate NonFiction (x2), colstrent (x2), WilSquare, Nawghty,**_ _and_ _ **PaladinDelta**_ _for their reviews and feedback. Much appreciated._

 _This was a very strange chapter to write. Bit of a rollercoaster, hence the delay. Half the time, I didn't know where I was going with it. Then I reached the scene where child-Hog dips a finger into the maelstrom of emotion taking over most of his mind, and looking back I figured that things kind of fit the way they were. Bit of a shorter chapter this time, but putting the Ashur scenes in this one I feel would have stolen the stage from the weird, allegory-laced, bullshit-psyker-stuff character moments._

 _To everyone else reading this for the past 100.000 words, the review box isn't a reserved club. I know there's some of you by the visitor count alone. Don't be shy, 'kay? Drop a_ _ **review.**_ _Do it. This fic is past average novel length now, it's less about enjoyment and more about good manners now. Thank you for reading._


	22. Foundry VII: A Lesson Learned on Borrowe

**Foundry VII: A Lesson Learned on Borrowed Time**

After flashing most of Ashur's army in the Hole, clothes were a welcome change of pace. No slave garb was thrown his way either, but decent, pre-war clothes dug out from God knew where, the likes Hog had seen a hundred times on tapes and posters, just a tad mustier and more threadbare. No spikes, leather, buckles or any of the paraphernalia that constituted the unspoken social language of the scum of the wastes, or so he figured it. Proper underwear, too.

The manacles around his wrists and the armed guards were like a nasty aftertaste to that cherry on top.

Dogmeat bit off the first probing hand reaching out with collar and muzzle. After that, Hog ordered it to be a good doggie before bullets went flying in its direction. He didn't know if he'd ever forget the feeling of digits crunching under the dog's teeth. At least, the taste of human flesh didn't carry through the link.

' _I didn't know dogs could sulk.'_

" _ **This is the first time I've been muzzled in over a century."**_

' _Must be nice to learn something new at your age.'_

Ashur liked his entertainment close to home. The Hole was dug in the middle of a hockey arena just a couple blocks west of Haven. A quick parade in chains through Uptown later, the procession descended into a large, fortified square. Burning barrels attended by slaves belched a thick, black smoke that curled around the sickest work of art Hog had ever seen. Metal tubes and plaques shaped to resemble muscle cords and organs formed a husk-like humanoid figure some thirty feet tall. It knelt at the base of the only staircase leading up to Haven's entrance, like a perversion of the Colossus of Rhodes. Its face, tossed back in rapture or agony, was blank and featureless, and nothing was there to identify its gender.

Hog looked up as he was marched between its legs, across concrete stained by long-dried blood. The statue's abdomen was hollowed out, the pelvic floor replaced with a blood-rusted cage door. _'Enough space for two people in there.'_

" _ **One holds the knife, another has their throat slit. Humans."**_ Dogmeat shared a vivid image through their link. Four faceless men knelt between the statue's legs, eyes closed, heads tilted high. Metal screeched against bone and blood poured down from above, cascading on their faces. All around, raiders cheered and chanted in the light of the flaming barrels. Memory or reconstruction, Hog couldn't tell. It made him look at the barrels with new eyes anyway. More and more were being lit.

' _From water to blood. A surefire way to infect newcomers.'_ He sighed, ignoring the looks he drew from his escort as much as he tried to ignore their emotions in the background. It was easier than in the Hole. The number of people probably had to do with it. He tried not to think about the walled-off portion of his mind that resonated with every ambient hint of grief and regret from the city. _'Is there really a doctor around here? Wonder if they have a dedicated John the Baptist as well.'_

Apparently, dogs could roll their eyes as well. Either that or Dogmeat was practiced enough to convey the gesture through thought alone. _**"Who do you think they're prepping the ceremony for?"**_

Up the steps, the tower's doors lay open. The buzz of half-formed thoughts, feelings, images, and words from inside coalesced in the image of a throne of metal. Upon it sat a figure that resembled the Ashur he'd seen from a distance in the Hole, yet was more. Fear as widespread as the plague and fanatical loyalty augmented the Lord in his subjects' minds, be them his soldiers or slaves. Through their eyes, he was larger, more imposing, as indestructible and eternal as the tower he resided in, whose top disappeared into the clouds.

Hog looked up at the gaping frames of a thousand floor-to-ceiling windows. Long-shattered glass once covered Haven's façade. Now, nothing hid rot within.

' _Really, it's all a matter of perspective. Think they'll give you a raider-y spiked collar after the blood-baptism?'_

" _ **Sarcasm is beneath you."**_

Haven's entrance hall had once been a stainless marvel of glass, marble, and steel. Glimpses of a past, cleaner glory jumped out to Hog's wandering eyes. Now, the metal had taken over: steel plates hugged columns and walls; steel paved a straight path that cut through the two aisles of the court. It led foot and eye alike to a raised dais and a tall throne of forged steel that gleamed several different shades of gray in the light of dangling chandeliers.

Ashur didn't sit as much as he sprawled on the contraption, but the frowning contemplation etched in his lined, scarred face under a beard like steel wool sitting on top of power armored shoulders banished any thought of laziness. An uneasy silence followed Hog's parade before the throne. An earnest kick to the back of his legs assured he knew his place before the Lord of The Pitt: on his knees.

In that silence, Hog pushed back the sheer mental presence of Ashur's courtiers to try and get a read of the egomaniacal tyrant. Where he'd expected sharp maliciousness or sadistic expectation, all feelings he was largely familiar with from his memories of Stevie Mack, the intense curiosity mixed with frustration and hope, of all things, surprised him. Hog nearly flinched as the latter resonated with the tumultuous amalgam behind the barrier. As he tried to retreat into himself, however, Ashur's voice cut into him.

"Hogarth Mitchell." Ashur's face gave nothing away, even as he rolled his name around his tongue. "The other Vaulties got sick within days, but you don't show any sign. It seems your mutation protects you. What caused it?"

Hog's eyes flitted to Ashur's closed fist, then back up to the slaver's. He shrugged.

"Bad calligraphy."

A few chuckles, quickly hushed. Confusion reigned supreme over the court. Ashur didn't laugh. "There're two things to remember when you're begging for your life. One is to try and entertain the person holding the gun to your head." Ashur's eyes narrowed. "The other is to give a convincing reason why they shouldn't kill you. Do you see me smiling?"

"All I see is that throne melting under your ass and this whole cathedral in the desert going down with it by next week." Hog gathered his legs under him and stood up. At Ashur's gesture, his knees were kicked in again. Hog went down without a fight and bent over his manacled hands, feigning pain. He didn't even wince as he popped his own left thumb out of its socket.

He glared up at Ashur, hiding his left hand into his right as he started to wiggle it free, inch by inch. "Shoot me then. Maybe I die. Maybe I don't. Your butchers did a piss-poor job trying anyway." Blood greased his wrist where the manacles cut into his flesh. _'Time for a stab in the dark.'_ "Whatever the case, you still don't know where Wernher's holed up, or where his accomplices set up the explosives."

A charged silence stole across the throne room. A gesture from Ashur stifled any building outburst in the cradle. The tyrant leaned forward, radiating enough confidence to obliterate the seeds of doubts Hog had just thrown his way. "The revolt will fail, like all others before. Like Wernher's little coup years ago, when he was still my second in command."

He chuckled at Hog's expression. The amused, open honesty rolling off the Lord told Hog he wasn't lying, and that Ashur could read on his face that he had realized as much. "He omitted that part, didn't he? The paladin of the oppressed was the first of the oppressors. He led more raids and captured more workers than everyone in this room. One of a kind, really, at least before the Blue Knobs nearly scalped him."

" _ **No surprise there."**_

' _You knew?!'_

" _ **Two Skins' body language didn't match his words. He smelled of lies. You too suspected he was deceiving you."**_

' _Not to this extent! A bit of a heads up, next time?'_

" _ **You plan for more?"**_

' _\- Just shut up and follow my lead.'_

Hog struggled to find the words, any words, as the crowd jeered and booed and laughed, every sound echoed by more primal sensations in his head. _'Stupid psychic bullshit.'_ His hand was almost free. Hog gritted his teeth. "And how many will die in the revolt? How many workers can you afford to lose? How much more damage can your infrastructure take?"

Ashur shook his head and leaned back into his throne. His curiosity wilted under fresh boredom. "Your fellow dwellers described you well. An arrogant, know-it-all brat who speaks of things he doesn't comprehend. I'm disappointed." His fist uncurled and a pair of dog tags uncoiled with a _clink_. On it, if he squinted, Hog could read his name and birthday. "I thought I'd seen something when you and your dog killed my Bear Brothers, but it seems this mutation is the only interesting thing you have going. A shame. My wife already took samples from you. She'll have it all figured out soon enough. Tell me, what else do I need you for?"

"The same wife who swindled you with a _cure for radiation_? That allows you to baptize your soldiers with infected blood?" Hogarth snorted, then spat on the ground. Sparks ignited the kindle of Ashur's boredom. The Lord was too used to having things his way to tolerate insolence and disrespect. Especially to someone close to him. _'Good to know.'_ "Are scammer and doctor synonyms out here these days?"

" _ **I thought you'd found the will to live?"**_

' _More of a compromise. Do you read my mind or what?'_

" _ **I used to. Now that you're fully aware of our link, I get only what you show me."**_

"The cure exists, you foolish boy. It flows in my daughter's veins. If you're lucky, you'll be a part of it too." He waved a hand in dismissal. "Take him to the hospital."

' _Then read this.'_

 _Thump-thump_. Ashur started to rise from his throne. Hog slammed an unshackled elbow between the legs of the guard that reached down to grab him. Dogmeat torqued its body like a spring, tearing the leash out of its handler's hands.

 _Thump-thump._ The dog slammed the man into the ground and pinned him there, pressing clawed paws on his shoulders and bare throat.

 _Thump-thump._ Hog's perception of time slowed, not quite the crawl it had been in the Hole, but almost there. He grabbed his guard by the wrist and belt, throwing him over his own shoulder. On his fourth heartbeat, Hog's knee found the guard's throat, pinning him. On the fifth, his right hand cleared the guard's sidearm from the holster and levelled it at Ashur's forehead.

Time snapped back to its natural flow on the sixth heartbeat. Hog's heart was in his throat and his temples beat like drums, but he didn't allow any of it to make his aim shake. Ashur's forearm froze across his torso on the seventh, halfway up to shield his face. The first rifle rose by the eighth. Hog read frustration at the fore of the Lord's mind, directed entirely inwards for allowing himself to grow too complacent, even surrounded as he was by his own army. ' _Wear a helmet next time.'_ And yet, there was no fear. Even his lingering anger over Hog's taunts was brought to heel behind a dam of appraising calmness and focus within moments.

By the tenth heartbeat, there were enough guns pointed Hog's way that were they to fire, he figured there'd be bits of him all over the throne room. But his mutation might give him the second he needed to squeeze the trigger.

Maybe. All the shouts and boiling emotions from the hundred-plus minds all around them made thinking clearly almost harder than in the Hole. He needed a clear head for the next minute or so.

"Shut your traps or I shoot!"

" _ **Smooth."**_

' _Fuck you too.'_

He earned a semblance of silence for maybe a second or two, before the volume rose again, loud enough to make his temples throb and the chandeliers tremble.

"Enough!"

Echoes, then silence. An inkling of envy made Hog grimace as a single word from Ashur quieted a congregation of the most bloodthirsty bastards in existence. The Lord crossed his arms.

"You trained your beast well, but it's pointless. You think you'll leave this room alive?"

"You won't either, my lord. At this distance, I'm better than the Silver Shroud," he lied. His voice lowered to a whisper, even as the barrier sealing almost everything connected to Amata pulsated, and the Master pulled and struggled at his mental leash, awakened by the killing intent skyrocketing around him. "And your wife killed the only person I ever cared for. Unlike you, I've got nothing left to lose."

Some of Ashur's soldiers edged closer in a semi-circle, muzzles aimed to his heart and face. One of them, the same man in the spiked metal armor that led the relief force through The Meat Park and down to The Crossing, came closer than the others and hefted an axe. Dogmeat growled in warning.

"Stop playing tough, kiddo. Put it down or I'm gonna rip your dog to ribbons. How would you like that?"

Hog chuckled and steadied his aim with his realigned left hand. "Be my guest. It wants me dead more than you do." Even as he smiled, trying to buy a few more seconds, Hog's eyes and gun never strayed from Ashur. His attention was split between probing the Lord's mind for any slight advantage and picking his next words. "Now shut up, small fry. I'm talking to your boss here."

"Enough, Krenshaw," Ashur commanded. Krenshaw's mouth opened and then closed. Not a syllable came out. "Just speak then. And be quick about it."

"It's simple. Quid pro quo." He let the words hang for just a minute, drawing a smidge of fun from the cloud of confusion blanketing the room and every set of eyes pointed his way, but Ashur's. "You give me the 101s, all of them, two days worth of food and water, and a train ride down to The Crossing." Hog took a small breath. "I bring you Wernher and the leaders of the revolt. I get them out, you get to keep your slaver kingdom. Everyone's happy."

Ashur sighed. Sparse chuckles broke out, knifing the tension. "This again? You're barking up the wrong tree. The workers are untrained and disorganized. Whatever weapons they crafted won't be enough against my soldiers. And any damage they may cause, I can have fixed shortly. The Pitt will never be brought down from the inside."

It was hard not to look surprised. ' _Jesus Christ. He doesn't know about Midea. Benefit of being the chief collaborator bitch.'_ Hog summoned up his most insolent, Wally-Mack-pre-Pitt knowing smile, one that dripped 'I know something that you don't'. "Maybe, my lord. But the slaves only want to leave, like I do. You're the only one that obsessed with this toxic, God-forsaken hellhole. Which is why Wernher is bringing in some other friends. You should know of them."

"Who?"

' _Here goes nothing.'_

"The Brotherhood of Steel," he bluffed. Curses, jeers, and even fouler curses answered his proclaim. It was the fleeting image bursting to the fore of Ashur's mind, however, vivid enough to crack his countenance, that made Hog's smile turn real. For a moment, Hog didn't see the old, bearded man in tribal power armor, but a younger Ashur who proudly wore the grey and blue insignia of the Brotherhood.

' _Time to double, triple, and quadruple down.'_ "Your old buddies are coming for a repeat, Paladin-Commander. Star Paladin Lyons was quite incensed when she learned who the Slaver Lord of The Pitt was. They have an armored blimp that can get them here in hours. Wernher just needs to give the signal and with all these clouds, you won't know until they're right on top of you." His smile widened. "They levelled The Crossing with only a dozen tired soldiers. I was there. How long will your army last against a hundred suits and air support?"

Dogmeat growled softly through the link. _**"Lies upon lies."**_

Hog gave him a mental middle finger. _'Learned from you.'_

" _ **Good."**_

Ashur frowned, then strode back to his throne and sat down. Hog contemplated shooting him – what good was his threat for if he didn't deliver? – but by the time he'd made up his mind, Ashur waved a hand. "Lower your weapons. All of you."

Again, his soldiers complied readily, though plenty of glances were exchanged. For a single moment, Hog felt he'd made a terrible, lethal mistake. What he saw of Ashur's thoughts was cold and calculating, only reinforcing that premonition; oddly enough, however, Ashur's reaction also gave him hope it wasn't all for naught and maybe he wouldn't be scrubbed off the walls in the very near future.

Ashur gestured at him to stand after what seemed like hours but was probably less than a minute. "Call off your mongrel and let Ramsey breath. We have a deal. Bring me the leaders to the hospital by tomorrow at midday, and you'll have your Vaulties." He studied Hogarth for a moment, then added, "Wernher's head will do. Everett here will kit you out." He stood again and the assembled army almost straightened to attention. "Krenshaw, Mex, attend me. Everyone else, go back to your duties and prepare for war."

Some time later, Hog walked out of Haven, Dogmeat in tow. The weight of his Pip-Boy was a welcome burden, though its presence on his wrist had become unfamiliar in the weeks he kept it hidden in his pockets. Lyons' ripper, strapped to his belt now, lent him a frail sense of confidence he could use to anchor himself. Everett, The Pitt's quartermaster, had also handed him an armored leather jacket and his pack, half empty as it was.

No food, no spare clothes, only irradiated water. It didn't matter. He had packets of railway spikes as ammo for his new rifle, a weird but ingenious thing that mixed fission and steam power. Everett handed it over as a prize for winning in the Hole, of all things. He had cigarettes and matches. And nobody had bothered to remove the used, filthy bandages he'd stowed in a side pocket the last morning at the Meat Park, with a mind to boil and sterilize them later.

He let out a breath. Without the ambient bloodthirstiness of Ashur's army crammed around him, the Master was quiet again, but what swagger Hog had purported also drained out of him. The rad-bath he'd taken in the Hole had served to heal him so quickly from the flamethrower-bath, or so Dogmeat said. At least Moira would be happy to know her theory on the enhancing effect of rads was right, after a fashion. Hog sighed again. Ecstatic was more like it. Well, that was a no-brainer. Chances were he'd never see the crazyhead again anyway.

What he really wanted was to just sit and sleep for a day or two. The dirty steps of Haven would do, but the lump in his throat kept him standing more than the vague sense of second-hand purpose and the sheer stubbornness that piloted his actions before the Lord of The Pitt.

' _At least it's stopped raining.'_ He brought a cigarette to his lips and tried to coax a match to light it up. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Dogmeat only gave him the courtesy of two soothing puffs. _**"He's going to betray you."**_

' _No shit? Can't be betrayal if there's no trust to begin with.'_

They left behind the chained monument and his cigarette was nearly a stub before Dogmeat broke their uncompanionable silence again.

" _ **Then why?"**_ Was the beast really curious? Or was it all just a ruse to worm deeper into his mind and break the Master-thing-freak free again? Hog guarded those thoughts against the dog. _ **"You weren't lying in there. You don't care about those humans you grew up with. Not really. Your thoughts about them are filled only with guilt and obligation. Just do the right thing and go to sleep. Let the Master out. You've fulfilled your role. You should be proud."**_

' _Yeah. No. Try again.'_ Hog shook his head. _'But you know, maybe you're right. Not about that freak-king. About caring. Maybe I don't.'_ He inhaled the smoke, then let it out. ' _But Amata did. She always cared enough for both of us. In my place, she wouldn't abandon them. That's good enough to keep going, I guess.'_

" _ **You don't make sense. She's tried to flee and now she's dead. You've seen what you are. Don't fool yourself: the Master's what's best in you. For you."**_ Hog had no trouble believing the dog's confusion this time. He had a bit more not shooting it for its callous tone. _**"… Fine. I can guide you away from here right now. Back to Washington. We'd be far gone before they even noticed."**_

Hog just hummed along and ground the stub of his cigarette under his boot, then fished out another one. _'Do I even want to know who or what's in for you back in DC?'_ He patted the animal on the head as they stepped on the nearest ramp to Uptown. _'If you want to guide me somewhere, guide me to the Steelyard. All these ramps will turn me around in five minutes flat.'_

0 * TTL * 0

The timer on the Pip-Boy said it was four twenty-three in the afternoon as Hog started to cross the Veterans Bridge to the Steelyard. Between the overcast and the fog summoned by the midday rain, he couldn't begin to tell it. Like a mirror to the pall above, the fog hung up to Hog's lower torso, soaking in the floodlights and hiding the river down below. Thick and sickly, it seeped through his clothes and socks, making his skin prickle and his feet freeze. Dogmeat was just a blurry, wet silhouette proceeding steadily at his side on soft paws. Even the dog's presence in his mind had quietened.

The guards waved him through the first fortified checkpoint and he proceeded on, keeping on one side of the railway tracks running in the middle of the bridge to avoid tripping. Every minute, he crossed paths with one or two squads of slaves pushing half-empty carts in the other direction. Urged on by their guards with fingers inches away from their guns' triggers, they largely ignored him, eyes set to their destination.

Hog didn't spare them a second glance either. After the ninth group had passed, he walked up to the parapet instead. At least, he tried. He managed only a couple steps before his feet refused to move another inch in that direction.

' _They haven't repaired it yet.'_ The broken cable hung limply in the complete absence of wind. Invisible cries echoed faintly in his ears, faint but still managing to be heard from behind the mental barrier. Hog swallowed, his throat dry. Unable to step back or forward, he crouched instead. His eyes traveled down the length of the cable and found the parapet as the fog tickled his chin.

Were those her bootprints, or was he just imagining things? He didn't know. Had the corpse-like Overseer really uttered the words haunting him with their truth, or were those and he too in his head alone?

"Your dad was right, A," he whispered to the fog. If he couldn't trust his own mind, then a thought or a thousand wasn't enough. "If it wasn't for me or James, you – you'd –" He choked on the last two words. The barrier pulsated and for a moment, Hog was tempted to just tear it down and let it all take him away. He knew doing so would destroy him utterly. What would remain of him? Maybe the Master would really take over and Dogmeat would be satisfied. Judging by the brief glimpse in the Hole, however, he found it more likely that he'd go stark raving mad, trip up, and plunge into the Allegheny after her.

He shook his head, side-stepping that morbid line of thought. _'Guilt and obligation first. Right?'_

Dogmeat didn't even bother to answer. It just trudged on ahead and disappeared into the fog.

Left alone in his vigil, it took Hog almost a minute to find his voice again. What was there to say? He had no right to say he was sorry or beg for forgiveness. Any promise he could make would sound hollow. Be hollow. He'd already broken the only important one. Looking back to that eternal moment in the Hole, at the cowardly rationalization that kept him going there, shame and self-hate bubbled up his throat.

"Do you know, A? Do you know why my heart keeps beating?" He reached out to touch the parapet. He could almost, almost see her. She stood there, clutching at the cable like a lifeline. Looking away from him.

His hand fell to his side. The parapet was out of reach, anyway.

He waited for an answer, any answer, but none was forthcoming. Of course. It was only him and the fog, both still and silent. After a while, he waved slightly, two fingers and a tilt of the wrist, and started off on Dogmeat's trail.

The portcullis gate rattled closed, delivering man and dog on the other side of the Allegheny River. Sweeping floodlights illuminated the naked surface of the highway and the train tracks smack in the middle of it: both traveled deeper into the ghost city, dipping lower as they went, up until the gloom gobbled up the light and the fog everything else. Ramps lined with more tracks, these wide enough only for mine carts, branched out from either side of the bridge to Hog's immediate right and left. They too disappeared into the fog that blanketed the city only a few feet below the bridge.

Even above the fog, the air was still. To Hog's ears, the loudest sound was his own breathing. He'd overheard one of the guards at the checkpoint speak into a radio, confirming that every work team had made it behind the fortified defenses. Behind him now, the tall barricades and gate were a prohibitive ensemble of steel, barbed wire, and jutting spikes. If he weren't sensing the presence of the guards on the other side or caught glimpses of them through embrasures, he'd have thought the whole place deserted.

' _They're afraid of the fog,'_ he realized, turning back to the cityscape squeezed between the fog below and the clouds above. _'Of what it conceals.'_

Dogmeat growled softly in agreement. _**"They fear what they can't control, as it should be. This is not a place meant for humans. That female you all think mad, she's glimpsed beyond the façade that has them all fooled."**_

It took Hog a moment to parse through Dogmeat's words and recognize the images accompanying them. _'You mean Beatrice? Beatrice Armstrong?'_

The dog shifted on its haunches, sniffing at the air. A faint cloying smell filled its nostrils, carrying through the link to Hog. He almost gagged. _**"These ruins are animated by a will of their own. One day, they'll spill past the river again and retake what's theirs. It's inevitable, like your eventual surrender to the Master."**_

The cutting comeback shriveled and died on the tip of Hog's psychic lips as Dogmeat deepened their link. A presence was pressing and probing at the edge of Dogmeat's sharper senses. Out of a sudden, morbid fascination, Hog deepened the link some more, borrowing the dog's nose, eyes, and mind to augment his perception. He let his own senses and with them, his physical awareness, fade to the background in order to feel better and farther off through the animal's. Smells became sharper, a language of their own, distinctive and unique but no less revolting. The color palette painting the world shifted and blended here and there.

Every new sensation was alien yet as familiar as slipping on a second skin. With every moment, the presence grew into focus, until she transcended the singular impressions to coalesce into a comprehensive figure. A primal thing, vast and bloated, calling out in hunger, needing to feed and spawn. A shiver wracked Hog's form, making the fur on his back stand at attention and his ears droop.

After a moment, or maybe an hour, or maybe neither, he narrowed down her general direction. To the north and west. Shrouded in the fog there was a park, carpeted in ashes carved by countless drag marks. A dry lake and an island in the middle of it, tunneled into. Deep underground. Deeper. _Closer_ –

The teeth sinking into his flesh brought Hog crashing back into his own body. Wide-eyed, he took in his surroundings, trying to orient himself as the world switched gears and colors, gaining and losing in equal measure. Dogmeat's mouth was clamped around his leg, digging into his calf and grinding against his tibia. He looked down and swallowed. Another step and he would have walked off the edge, disappearing into the fog.

" _ **Idiot pup!"**_ Dogmeat barked through the link, punctuating the statement by freeing Hog's limb from its mouth. _**"Start shooting and shouting while you're at it. We are not welcome here."**_

Hog stumbled back, reeling under the onslaught. Blood trickled freely from his shredded calf, but the wound only stung a little. Leaning onto his sane leg, he wiped a hand across his face. It came away trembling and damp with cold sweat.

' _What the hell is that?'_

" _ **Breeder. Danger. Ruler. Do the smart thing and turn around. We shouldn't have come with the fog."**_

His first instinct agreed with the dog, then Hog glanced down at the clock on his Pip-Boy's display. His instincts were always crap anyway. _'That's tough,'_ he thought back with a bravado he didn't really feel, _'but this fog could linger for days, or it could start raining again. I only have until tomorrow at noon.'_ Dogmeat grumbled and pawed at the corroded tarmac as Hog fished out the dirty bandages from his pack. Wernher had had them wrapped around his ankle for over a day. _'Can you get his scent from this?'_

Dogmeat huffed, then took a good, long sniff. Hog grimaced at the fragrance of dry, days-old sweat and the assorted smells that filled the dog's nose. _'I have to learn to tune that out.'_ Their heads turned in the same direction.

" _ **He's close."**_

Irradiated water on the wound sped up the regeneration. Soon enough, Hog was ambling after Dogmeat, leaving the sniffing to the professionals. Anything resembling metal had long since been hauled away from the elevated highway, leaving train tracks, the odd bullet casing, and cigarette stubs instead as signs of human presence. The stains of dry blood that decorated the cracked tarmac spoke of an endless back and forth of violence, a tale narrated in colors and signs: long-clotted black and fresher red mixed with different shades of yellow and green. Several pools were disrupted by footprints rushing in the gate's direction. Most were spread and elongated by dragging marks plunging beyond the parapets or further along the highway.

Dogmeat led him past the branching ramps. Then, when the vast highway split up into three narrower lanes, he kept to the left lane, the closest to the Breeder's underground dwellings. As the lane started to dip into a gentle descent, every step forward took them closer to the fog. Hog's head swiveled left and right. He tried to catch a glimpse or a sensation of the creatures lurking in the Steelyard down below, and yet dreaded the moment when a shadow or a presence at the edge of his consciousness would eventually breach the echoing silence around them.

It happened as soon as the fog lapped at his feet again. Hog froze, eyes widening as the cold climbing up his leg brought with it the hunger of hundreds, no, _thousands_ of waiting, savage minds, disseminated into the fog, spread out all over the city. Each one he touched was a tiny thing, ruled by the instinct to feed and to bring food to the Breeder. Their need so overwhelming, Hog didn't dare linger more than a moment on any particular one, not wishing to be drawn out of his body again by their powerful, primal lure.

And yet, his mind's touches left ripples. The trogs, the Breeder's children, answered, stirring and calling out to each other. Through the fog, the echo of their growls reached him, distant and faint. Hog cursed under his breath and tried to shut off his senses to avoid gathering more attention, but it was like keeping his eyes open while wishing he couldn't see.

" _ **This way."**_

Dogmeat loped into the fog. Hog followed right after it but he'd have lost sight of the dog's swishing tail if not for their link acting like a compass between them. Beyond a few feet, the world just ceased to exist, reduced to a wall of green, smoky swirls that amplified Hog's steps to an unbearable cacophony. He barely managed to suppress a cough on his first breath. The second went down only a little easier.

On and down they went for what felt like miles until Dogmeat halted at a crumbled portion of the lane along the leftmost parapet. The rubble made for an uneven slope the dog took without hesitation. Hog peered down it instead, trying to assess how far down it went and spot any piece of jutting rebar, but the fog, already closing behind Dogmeat's passage, made both an exercise in futility.

At the bottom of the admittedly short slide down, he was met by the sight of Dogmeat pissing.

' _Age loosened your bladder?'_ Hog teased, wiping the sweat from his palms before bracing his rifle. The odd growl and the accompanying spikes of hunger were getting closer, louder, more numerous.

" _ **I'm marking the way up. Unless you want to swim across the toxic river and reach your female, memorize it."**_

' _What?'_

" _ **Sniff it. Your nose will lead you back better than your eyes in this fog."**_

' _Gross.'_ The Pip-Boy's screen lit up at a touch and Hog's fingers danced between the knobs and buttons. _'There, done. I marked this place on my map. You smell your own piss.'_

Hissing growls and the echo of slapping bounds cut off Dogmeat's comeback in that philosophical debate. Hog reached out with his senses when his eyes failed him and recoiled in horror at the sheer number of minds already fast converging on their position. Wernher was close; Dogmeat's nose, urine or not, told him as much. The checkpoint and the safety of walls and guns were closer. He could be back behind them within minutes. Probably.

' _And then what?'_

Hog and Dogmeat started running as one, deepening their link more than ever before. They left the debris slope behind, feet and paws beating on the tarmac, stealth thrown out of the equation as they followed Wernher's scent. The road and sidewalks were bare, stripped by decades of scavenging hands, but every crack in the road or piece of rubble was a deadly trap, eager to trip or twist an ankle and deliver them to their pursuers.

The Breeder's presence filled the air, as permeating and stifling as the fog itself. She pounded on their minds, feeding thoughts of despair and surrender, latching on the leashes binding the Master at the bottom of Hog's mind. To Hog's surprise, Dogmeat didn't support that effort to set the freak-king free. Instead, they pushed back against the Breeder's attempt to slow and confuse them.

The mental clash ended in the span of a dozen steps. Their concentrated efforts broke the Breeder's mindless onslaught, sending the presence scurrying back into her lair, licking her wounds. Yet as she retreated, a wordless, mental call strong enough to make him wince pierced the ether. The trogs answered in chorus, loud enough to make Hog's world shake.

His mind helpfully translated the primal order the Breeder issued to her children.

 _Feed. Them. To. Me._

The duo swerved to the right, cutting through a parking lot with wings on their feet. Any concept of north and south was a wasted thought. The world was limited to the few feet around them and the burning scent filling their nostrils, stronger with every step. The trogs' calls boomed all around them, again and again, making Hog's head spin and his vision swim. He could smell them too now, their stench trying to obfuscate Wernher's, growing more overpowering by the second.

A _crack_ of breaking tiles, a sharper note in the ravenous chorus. Dogmeat's fur stood to attention like a hedgehog's needles. So did the hair on Hog's neck. Man and dog moved away from each other, just in time for a massive, naked shape to crash with a howl in the space they occupied. Hog twisted his body around and sent two spikes into the crawling mass of limbs, but didn't stop to see if they hit.

Shapes and silhouettes started to darken the fog behind them. Hog fired every last spike in the clip, aiming low while running, but it was like hosing an electrical fire with a thimble. If anything, they drew closer, until Hog could glimpse raw faces and gnashing teeth in the fog.

" _ **Keep running."**_ The hazy image of a tall, red brick building squeezed between two towers blinked into Hog's mind. _ **"Two Skins is just ahead. High up."**_

' _You can't fight them all.'_

" _ **The Breeder wants us both, but she can't distinguish between you and me. I'll lead away as many as I can. Don't waste time, she'll sense we've split up and try again. Kill Two Skins and go back. I'll find you."**_

Dogmeat weakened their link, returning Hog fully to his own skin again, then vanished into the fog at blinding speed. Its barks challenged the trogs' calls and growls, echoing off Hog's right, but he didn't stop to cast a single glance in that direction. He pushed on instead, through the dried husks of dwarf trees and bushes framing some walkway, willing his legs to emulate the dog's speed and his nose to catch the last whiff of Wernher's smell, fading fast now that Dogmeat's presence was growing ever weaker with distance.

He didn't know how many trogs were peeling off to chase the dog, if any. By the sound of the vegetation being steamrolled, there were still enough to drown the entire Pitt in a tide of bodies. Hog's mind and eyes worked faster than his body, trying to match Dogmeat's directions with his blurry surroundings, trying to ignore the mounting fear that he'd ran past the target already, that soon he'd hit a dead end, and then it'd be just him and –

The cracked, red brick wall and its marble decorations jumped out of the fog at collision speed. Hog's body overtook his brain; he slung the rifle across his back and jumped, grabbing the top of a marble window frame. Hog's legs and shoulders redirected forward momentum straight up, propelling his entire body in another upwards leap. The wall shook under him as the trogs smashed into the bricks with sickening crunches. His fingers closed around marble ledge, while his feet scrambled to find purchase in the crooks of the worn, marble letters and against the lower ledge.

As he hung there like a monkey, strained tendons and burning muscles began to reknit in his legs, back, and shoulders. A few meters below, the trogs churned like the angry sea in the ghoul captain's memories, clawing at the building's façade in an attempt to reach and grab him. A few tried to follow him up, only to slid and skid and disappear among their brethren again. Others threw themselves against the boarded up doors and windows without much success.

The moment air filled his lungs again and his body stopped shaking, Hog hauled himself up, scrambling over the diagonal edge on all fours. The incline and centuries of dirt and detritus tried to make him slip and slide off to his doom, but he held on and started crawling forward, towards the gaping, damaged frame of a sunburst glass.

The next clip of spikes clicked into the feeder and Hog peered inside, widening his eyes to try and exploit what little light shone through, but not daring to switch on his Pip-Boy flashlight. The fog thinned to a blurry film that coiled around the few remaining pipes of an organ. The bulk of the console was missing, however; beyond it spread a balcony that dominated a vast hall, framed in tall columns on each side as far as his eyes could see, which wasn't admittedly that far.

As he began to slide inside, the trogs' ramming attempts at the door ceased. He hadn't taken the first breath of relief, however, when the Breeder's mental assault resumed, trying to encroach his mind and force him into submission.

Hog lashed back, but the surprise was enough for him to miss a step in the dim light. His foot slipped and he fell the rest of the way, landing on one side. Something sharp bit into his leather jacket and leg, drawing blood from the latter. Hog bit hard on his lip to suppress a yelp of pain, dumbed as it was, but as he tried to move, a soft chorus of _crick-cracks_ punctuated his every shift.

What little ambient light there was reflected dimly on the dozens of tiny shards of dirty glass embedded into the treated leather of his jacket.

The Breeder's next assault left little chance for contemplation. Hog flinched, drawing another chorus of cracking glass, then pressed himself against the nearest wall, hiding in its shadow. A growl bubbled up in his throat, held back only by sheer willpower and gritted teeth, and Hog realized he'd unwittingly loosed the Master's mental leash in response to the pressure. His temples throbbed with his own heartbeat and his hands closed into fists against his eyes as the freak-king tried to capitalize on the opening, pulling for more control, for total control, as the Breeder pushed and pounded from the outside.

' _Since you're here, you might as well make yourself useful.'_ The mind, he'd discovered in his brief experience, had no real physical measure, much like the world shrouded in the fog. No up or down, left or right, or any recognizable cardinal directions. Yet, instinctively, he always imagined himself in a space ruled by those contradictory limits every time it came to the sixth-sense-like powers and the separated entities – the leashed Master and the barrier- that now shared his mindscape. Whatever the reason, that visualization and simplification seemed to help him control them to some extent.

So Hog imagined himself swinging the struggling Master around in an arc by its leash to slam into the Breeder. Whatever really happened, she recoiled and the Master pounced on, tearing into her like a rabid beast. Hog pulled at his leash with both hands and when the thing lashed back at him, he shoved it face-first against the barrier. He stopped just short of making contact and, possibly, shattering it, to the risk of freeing the maddening amalgam lurking on the other side.

' _Quiet, or we go down together.'_

When Hog opened his eyes again to the material world, he was still crouching in the same corner. He spat a mouthful of blood and pink-red tissue, then grimaced: his tongue and inner cheeks stung and pulled with the telltale sensation of regeneration. At least he hadn't cried out, drawing more attention to his presence. He took a steadying breath, then quickly searched the area around with all senses. He was still alone on the balcony, but the number of trogs milling outside remained in the low hundreds, even if they appeared to have given up on finding a way inside for now.

The Breeder held back, just a remote presence at the edge of his awareness, fainter than ever before. Despite the dog's intents, however, that he could say the same thing about Dogmeat worried him.

 _'It's the distance. Must be.'_

Putting all thoughts of Dogmeat out of his mind, Hog got to his feet. A quick exam revealed that one end of the balcony was barricaded off with rubble, debris, and the butchered remains of the pipe organ's console. A ladder lay on the floor nearby and by the profusion of footprints, as well as the clear signs on the banister, the whole area looked like it had seen a lot of traffic recently.

He followed the tracks across the balcony to the bottom of a narrow, spiral staircase leading only upstairs. If he closed his eyes, he could just catch a faint buzz of words from upstairs. More importantly, he felt a single presence, a tight bundle of frustration, restlessness, and pain. The temptation to touch his mind was strong, but the Hole had shown he could do nothing to influence another mind. At best, he only risked alerting them to his presence, like with the trogs.

Rifle tilted up, Hog tested his weight on the first step for creaks and weaknesses, then moved on. He inched upwards, testing every single step for treacherous sounds. It wouldn't do to give up what surprise he still had, he told himself over and over. And yet, he couldn't deny a certain burning curiosity. Halfway up, it became clear Wernher was speaking to someone on the radio. After he made sure his Pip-Boy's speakers were muted, Hog booted up the same radio direction finding software he once used to track other Pip-Boy signals during his nightly excursions and isolated the frequency, then continued his ascent.

" – your sidekick sold us out before you could, asshole," a woman bit out on a disturbed line. "You can fight Ashur for these ruins until you both drop dead for all I care. I'm getting my people out of here. Tonight."

"Don't be a fool, Midea!" Wernher snapped, pounding a fist on something metallic. Hog crept up the stairs, holding his breath. "You don't have the numbers or the weapons. Just wait another day!"

"I'd be a fool to stay one more hour. You think I'm blind?" Midea sneered across the line. "I know who your friends are. I'm not swapping one collar for another so that you can jerk off your power-boner. If hundreds of us have to die, then we'll die free, and take this fucking place with us. No more slavery, Wernher. Enjoy the lightshow."

"No, wait! Goddamnit!" Hog peered over the edge of the platform and saw Wernher sitting at a desk, twisting the dials of a radio. The liar was showing him his back, his bad leg propped on his pack. The air between them was clear, if gloomy; one glance out of one of the nearby shutters confirmed that indeed, they stood just above the fog. "Answer me, you bitch!"

When only static answered him, Wernher swept a hand out, tossing a couple syringes of med-x off the desk, then cursed. "Oh, come on! Stupid fucking leg. You really had to take a hit for that fucker, didn't you, Wernher?! Of course, you did." He dragged himself to his feet and hobbled all the way to the syringes. To pick them up, he just sat down unceremoniously, half-tossed on the ground. His hands handled the medication with hate and reverence both, but his eyes craved their contents.

"Last two," he whispered to himself as he uncorked a needle. Hog stepped up on the platform, aiming the rifle at Wernher's back. "Gotta stretch 'em out. Only one more day and they'll be here. I'm safe here. Whole place's barricaded. Ain't much now, right? Only one more day."

He could have just shot him dead there and then, without wasting any more breath on the stinking liar. Yet Hog's finger lingered on the trigger as Wernher's vocal internal debate ended and he plunged an entire syringe in the reddened crook of his arm. His lungs worked instead.

"Don't move." Wernher froze, needle still stuck in his arm. In his anger and pain, he'd left his gun on the desk. Might as well have been kilometers away with his leg. "Hands up." Hog circled closer to Wernher, keeping on the side of his bad leg, until he stared down at the liar's bloodshot eyes. "Solitude's treating you well, Uncle Wernher."

Emotions too numerous to count danced across Wernher's beleaguered face and widening pupils, too many for Hog to even try to get a read. At last, Wernher settled with glaring back at him, but the bitter regret he tried to hide resonated within Hog, trying to lead him towards the barrier and what he was too afraid to confront.

"So this is it, spud? Really? Undone on the eve of victory? You must be kidding me."

' _I'm not here to gloat,'_ Hog told himself, repeating the words in his mind like a mantra. "I made a compromise with the lesser evil. And then I'll stab him in the back. Just like you taught me." Hog shrugged, but his rifle barely wavered from Wernher's face. "Your lives for theirs. The 101s never figured in your plan, or Midea's. But at least she was kind enough to let me know where she is."

Despite what he told himself, Hog did indeed cherish the confusion cemented on Wernher's face by a railway spike through the forehead. Just a little. Then he revved up the ripper, steeled himself, and tried his best to imitate Lucy's grisly work with the ghouls at Planky Town.

Once the dripping head was wrapped up in Wernher's own shirt and secured into his backpack, Hog searched the cramped room for any hint on the identity of Wernher's friends. Soon, it became clear the liar had taken that bit of information to the grave. Maybe he'd ask Midea or Marco, if he got the chance to chat a bit before killing them too.

' _And with her dead, bye bye mills and power plant.'_

But first, he had to figure out how to leave the Steelyard without becoming trog-chow. The Breeder's reaction to the Master gave him an idea. A crazy, suicidal idea he'd have never contemplated twenty-four hours before, but really, having nothing left to lose offered a new perspective on everything.

0 = TTL = 0

 _My thanks to_ _ **The Desert Dancer, DmCrebel25, Baslias, Typedoutatnight, ScrimshawPen, Nawghty, PartyPat22, Paladin Bailey, WilSquare, Aegon Blacksteel, colstrent, Alternate NonFiction, Solivore (x5)**_ _for their feedback and reviews. I know Everett is the Steeelyard's foreman in canon, but here the slave kapos cover that position already, so I shuffled him around. I hope Ashur's and Wernher's scenes weren't a letdown after such a long wait. And I've fused together the Veterans Bridge with the railway bridge just south of it in RL Pittsburgh because it was convenient and didn't change anything. Same goes with the description of the bridge itself._

 _On the Breeder, her inclusion and what it implies for (most of) the trogs was a spur of the moment thing. In the game, Wernher sates trogs breed and I had him mention that in my fic as well. The original idea was to have Ashur send Hog hunting a number of "Trog Queens" and their nests across the Steelyard before the revolt started, but I didn't find a good way to implement it without blasting the Arc's plot cohesion with "side-quests"… so I decided to borrow another page from Point Lookout's horror vibe (and, admittedly, Dragon Age's darkspawn) and throw that in, as I won't be covering Point Lookout in the WL Series (not until I learn Japanese, which isn't admittedly feasible). I hope that wasn't too weird._

 _Been a while since the last list of recommended fics, so have some:_

 _The Memory Box_ _by DocMarten2525: a sequel to the stupendous A Beautiful Heart, a very post-F4 fic that's not afraid to reshape the world with one hand and gut-punch you in the feels with the other, where it really hurts. What else is there to say?_

 _Diary of a Chief Citizen_ _and its sequel,_ _Diary of a Commonwealth Journalist_ _by colstrent. Very short fics, both complete, only a few thousand words long in a journal format. The first deals with the aftermath of Hoover Dam from a very bold Courier's POV. The sequel delves into the consequences of the Institute's destruction and blowing a nuke in the middle of a city. Both are very brave stories and the author is not afraid to delve into controversial topics._

 _And finally,_ _The Icelander's Edda: Frozen Embers_ _by Nawghty. This fic focuses heavily on SS Viktor and Nora. The protagonist's perspective is unique by virtue of coming from a vastly different culture, and knowing bits and pieces of what's to come, I can assure you the plot will later develop on an idea that is, as far as I know (and I've read a lot), completely unique to the fandom. The beginning is more romance-drama-culture-shock heavy, but the story has something for every taste, and the writer churns out chapters regularly. Go read it. The Ghost of Christmas Authors will know if you don't._

 _Show them some kindness and attention this Christmas, and not only to them: all your favorite authors could do with some love, appreciation, and honest feedback. Thank you for reading and don't forget to_ _ **review**_ **,** _be it my stories or other authors'_ _ **.**_

 _Next chapter will conclude this story._

 _Edit 08/01/2018: PartPat22 venit, vidit, correxit._


	23. Foundry VIII: Apple Pie and Other Just D

**Foundry VIII: Apple Pie and Other Just Deserts**

Hog's mind retreated from the roving mass of trogs on the streets below and his eyes opened again to the small room at the top of the tower he shared with Wernher's beheaded body. With a long-suffering sigh, he stretched out his cramping legs and checked the time on his Pip-Boy. Another twenty minutes wasted. Giving up, he drew an imaginary line over the safe approach option.

No matter what he tried, without Dogmeat's senses to act as an amplifier, he couldn't touch the Breeder's mind. The dog was just a feeble presence at the very edge of his awareness at that point, God only knew how many miles away. By now, Hog was pretty sure distance was a significant discriminant in psychic interactions and that, of course, worked doubly against him. Ever since he turned the Master against her, the Breeder had remained silent, not daring another mental assault.

Maybe during that brief clash she, like him, had felt the Master's bottomless hunger as the freak tried to _consume_ every part of her he touched. And maybe she, like Hog, preferred to not experience something like that ever again.

Lucky for the king freak, Hog's alternatives didn't go much further than dying of thirst or becoming trog-chow. Either meant missing his appointments with Marco, Midea, and Ashur. So suck it up it was.

It took another precious quarter of an hour to set up the ladder and then remove most of the boards from one of the windows on the ground floor. The resulting gap was wide enough for a single, stubborn trog to squeeze through if it really wanted to. A few deliberate shots, combined with his previous psychic exploring, was plenty of reason for quite a few.

He rushed back up the ladder and reached the balcony as the first trog broke through the hole, followed closely by another, and then a third. By the time the first pawed at the ladder with misshapen four-digit hands, almost a dozen already roamed in the hall.

The ladder rattled against the worn marble of the banister as the first trog heaved its bulk up one rung at a time, its motions slow and almost tentative. More trogs crowded around the ladder's bottom, beating and pushing on each other to be the next up. Hog grimaced as the ladder swayed dangerously when one of the creatures was slammed against it by a rival. He grabbed the top with one hand, then steadied the railway rifle against the banister and opened fire on the growling trogs below.

Time didn't slow, but the rifle had little in the way of recoil and the trogs were so packed, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. The five inches of metal punched into their bodies, snapping heads and limbs with sickening cracks and pinning a few to the floor, where they thrashed and howled to the indifference of their brethren. As the first trog reached the middle of the ladder, another jumped to follow it, but only managed to clear two rungs before a spike to the neck sent it toppling. Two clips worth of spikes, about half of Hog's remaining ammo, were enough to thin their numbers around the ladder. Yet, for every one he killed or disabled, more were pouring in from outside.

Hog fed the third clip to his rifle just as the climbing trog's hands grabbed the banister. The moment its head emerged, hateful eyes and gnashing teeth and all, he smashed the butt of the rifle against its temple. The trog's grip faltered, its body swayed. Hog dropped his rifle and grabbed the creature, then hauled it bodily over the edge and tossed it against a wall.

The trog crumpled on impact, stunned but conscious. It gathered its oblong limbs under its swollen belly and shook its head in an all-too-human gesture. The first spike, shot almost point-blank, pinned it to the wall sideways by the forearm; the second through its thigh cut its howl down to a crazed moan. Hog turned around and rushed back to the ladder, just in time to send a spike through the face of a trog about to jump on the balcony.

Every spike from his third clip found its target in a trog trying to or climbing the ladder, clearing it and heaping bodies at its bottom. He grabbed the ladder with both hands then and pulled it up, grunting as a dying trog refused to let go, holding on with one hand. The brief tug-of-war ended when Hog jerked the ladder around, snapping the clutching hand by the wrist. Rung by rung, he lifted it back to the balcony, outside the trogs' reach, then tossed it aside and picked up his rifle again.

Keeping the Sheriff's teaching in mind, he fed the hybrid his last clip, then ignored the pinned, wailing trog and checked again the barricaded spiral staircase leading to the ground floor. Sure enough, trogs were beating and pushing against the organ's console, but the narrow passage ensured they couldn't bring up the numbers to force it aside. Hog tossed a look over the banister and let out a breath of equal parts of relief and horror, trying to slow his hammering heart. Over a hundred trogs were already roving in the hall, with more coming in from outside. And with the fog reduced to a thin film inside, he could see them, all of them, quite clearly.

The wild idea of aborting the original plan in favor of turning the chokepoint at the window against the trogs and slipping out the way he came in was short-lived. A mental sweep confirmed that no matter how many were inside, more choked the streets and surrounded the building from all sides out of sheer numbers alone.

"Your mom really wants us, doesn't she?" The pinned, bleeding trog thrashed weakly in response against the spikes digging into its body. Yet, it still tried to crane its neck around and get a taste of Hog as he stood over it. Hog's lips pursed in distaste, but recent memories pulled at him, the kind he didn't have the benefit of sealing behind a mental barrier. Had this trog been human, once? Just another slave, sold to The Pitt and lost to the plague that found its way to the Breeder? Had Mary Kendall, young Francis Gorobitz, Jim Wilkins and God knew how many other 101s been turning into something like it? If so, how many more had succumbed to madness since he was there last?

' _I'm doing my best here,'_ he told his pricking conscience.

He had no intention of trying to probe the trog's mind. From what he'd seen and felt, the creatures were utterly dominated by the Breeder's needs. Their hunger was a mirror to hers. They bustled like working ants that brought food to their queen. And looking back to her first mental assault Dogmeat and he repelled, the Breeder was in some way linked to the trogs, just like Dogmeat and he were. She had to be. And if he could find a way to piggyback ride that link back to the Breeder herself, then his plan could still work.

If the Master was hungry, Hog was ready to let the freak eat to his heart's content, as long as it was the Breeder and not him. With some luck, her demise would throw the trogs into chaos and give him the opening to squirrel away.

Hog snorted through his nose. If he was relying on luck, then he was really at the end of his rope.

Just in case, he would keep a spike for himself. Being bitten to shreds by those teeth wasn't something he particularly looked forward to. Especially as his regeneration would only prolong the agony.

For good measure, he pinned the trog's other hand to the brick wall with a spike, then grabbed its leathery skull with both hands. The trogs' pupils, already so wide they occupied most of the orbit, grew beyond the edges of Hog's vision. The Master pulled against his leash, salivating, and the rest of the world bled away.

0 * TTL * 0

The Master needed only the slightest encouragement, a thought, a nudge in the direction Hog wanted him to go. Before he could wrap his head around what was happening, the freak gobbled up the trog's mind like it was breakfast, assimilated its link to the Breeder, and pounced on. From a thousand miles away, the trog's body bucked and thrashed under Hog's hands, before it went still.

Then the real banquet started.

The Breeder fought back, but by the time she realized what was really happening, it was already over. Always on the offensive, always feeding, she was utterly unprepared for the onslaught unleashed her way. Her screeches deafened him in mind and body; hundreds of trogs picked it up all around the priory and beyond, until the entire Steelyard rattled with the shared agony coursing through their link with their mother.

In flashes, second-hand images streaming in as the Master feasted and consumed everything, he saw the woman the Breeder had once been, long before Ashur's time. A sickly thing, driven to swim across the river, then to hide underground; her years of plague and radiation, madness and hate, of feeding on corpses and critters, until her body bloated and swelled, so much the world above ground was precluded to her. Others fed her then, bringing offers so that she'd give them children in return. She ate and spawned, spawned and ate, until something – _someone_ she consumed linked her mind to the children, and they all became hers.

And then, on that frozen memory of joyous acknowledgment, her mind was gone.

In their shared mindscape, the Master shrugged off the leashes that had kept him contained up until then; what the surprise ordeal in the Hole had stolen from his strength and power just a few hours before was restored again, his presence more oppressing than the Breeder's had ever been. The Master turned the full weight of that pressure on Hog then and his formless, misty mass took a very familiar shape.

Hog, with his right hand hovering over the barrier in a silent, mutually suicidal threat, found himself staring at a copy of himself.

' _No, not a copy.'_ The Hog that was cocking his head at him may have his face, but he carried himself like a king, a god among men. Behind him stood an endless number of human figures, men and women alike as far as the eye could see, their features blurry and undefined; all were reaching out to him, offering their right hand. Other-Hog smiled kindly at him, his palms open and wide in a welcoming gesture.

" _Join me and they will be our Legacy. A new race, to thrive in this world. To make it ours again._ _"_

Hog stared at the proffered hands for a long time. After what felt like hours, he looked up at Other-Hog's eyes, where the brown was completely replaced by the vibrant green that already speckled his own.

' _There'll never be an us, freak. Only you, or me. Now fuck off, or there'll be neither.'_

The Master smiled a knowing, toothy smile and the entire vision burst into a hovering mist. Hog found himself back on the balcony, clutching the limp head of the dead trog. His fingers were burrowing into its skin; greed blood trickled down his wrists. All around him, silence reigned.

The mental state he'd reached in the Hole, that condition of apathetic acceptance, was hard to return to with his hands smeared in trog blood and the echoes of the Master's hunger whispering in his mind. Yet, he still gave it his best shot. For his part, the Master did nothing to try and stop him. Nor did Dogmeat, whose presence was growing steadily stronger and closer.

Hog _willed_ it and barriers came up once again, sealing the Master off just like he had most of his memories of Amata and the burden they carried. The effort left him on his knees, drenched in cold sweat, gasping for a breath that he wasn't missing.

Then the new barrier shattered. The Master chuckled.

" _You're a century too soon to seal me away. But there's no need to drive yourself to madness to spite me. I can wait. Until you come to me. Until you beg._ _"_

Hog rose on trembling legs, steadying himself against the banister. Stiff fingers found his pack. _'Don't hold your breath.'_

0 * TTL * 0

The trogs, for lack of a better word, had gone vegetative; they sprawled in disjointed heaps of limbs all over the street, eyes staring into empty air, their chest barely lifting with each breath. After climbing down the façade, Hog picked his way through them, taking a long detour rather than taking the risk of touching one and snapping all of them out of it in a chain reaction. Moreover, he didn't trust the Master not to use the lightest brush to cannibalize their minds, nor himself to hold it at bay again should it grow even stronger.

The marker on his Pip-Boy led him as truthfully as it had during his Vault days; soon, the stench of dry dog piss became overpowering, even to his human nose. Dogmeat waited on top of that short climb up to the freeway, looking no worse for wear. Trog ichor aplenty caked his muzzle and paws.

" _ **You've let him consume the Breeder. Very good."**_

He glared at the animal as he dusted himself. _'You banked on it, didn't you?'_

" _ **I've spent weeks in your head without you noticing. I know much of how you think, especially when your back's against a wall. And the Master needed to recover his strength after what your weakness and my mistake cost him in that arena."**_ The beast licked its paws, then started off up the lane. _**"If you want to blame someone, blame yourself. You insisted we go into this fog. I obeyed."**_

The rifle's stock pressed hard against the crook of his shoulder. Dogmeat halted; its eyes glowed in the fog as it turned its head to face the rifle pointed at him.

" _ **Don't be such a human."**_

' _Give me one good reason I shouldn't.'_

" _ **You owe me your life, for starters. Plenty of times over. And I never disobeyed you. If you aren't ready to face the consequences of your decisions, don't lay the blame on me."**_

' _Don't pretend you did any of that for me. You're only protecting your Master.'_

Dogmeat inclined his head to the side. _**"As long as you keep resisting, you're still part of my Pack."**_

' _Fuck that.'_ Still, Hog pointed the rifle to the ground. _'How do I know you won't turn on me the next time he tries to take control? You backed him in the hole.'_

The canine equivalent of a snort was his answer. _**"I tore down the barrier too soon and that turned him feral. The Master doesn't need my help. You do. He commands my obedience. And since you host him, you have it too."**_

Hog's grip on his rifle tightened, but he fell in step with the dog nonetheless, though he kept some distance between him and the plodding creature. Soon they crossed the fog's limits, the three lanes converged into one, and they stood before the portcullis gate, much to the bewilderment of the guards.

' _I just have to consider my words carefully around you, then?'_ Hog asked rhetorically as the gate began to rise. _'Like speaking to a three-wishes genie in a lamp.'_

" _ **That's a resolution more humans should adopt. If you'd learned that one before your speech in the Vault, you'd have spared yourself years of grief."**_

Hog lifted his eyes from the Pip-Boy screen, pausing his efforts in trying to triangulate the location of Midea's radio. _'Do you want me to shoot you that badly?'_

" _ **Humans have tried for years. Your ancestor riddled my body with bullets. I'm still here."**_

The guards had questions about what happened and why the trogs went bonkers and started howling at once, only to then fall silent just as quickly. A shrug, Dogmeat's warning growls, and a casual drop of Ashur's name gave him an easy way out, but his purported confidence sounded fake even to his own ears.

On the way back across the bridge, he stuck to the opposite side of the tracks and stared either ahead or at the Pip-Boy's screen, pushing his legs to a brisk pace. The Veterans Bridge passed by in a blur punctuated by the minutes ticking in his head and on the display, the only thing he allowed himself to think of during the crossing.

He only realized his lungs were burning and he'd been holding his breath when his feet touched the other bank of the Allegheny. The urge to turn around and stare at the broken cable was strong, but Hog shut his eyes, lit himself the first of many cigarettes, and soldiered on. There was nothing else he had the right to say, but maybe his actions would speak louder.

The fog wasn't as pervasive in Downtown due to the taller riverbank, but it still hung up to Hog's knees as the signal turned his steps south-west. Still, Hog kept away from the ramps as he closed in on the broadcasting location; following the signal through the elevated maze of Uptown and the nosy raiders there, who patrolled the ramps in large numbers, was an extra headache he was more than ready to avoid.

By comparison, the streets were largely empty, but the momentary fog-induced pause in the scavenging operations or the advancing evening played only a part in the reduced foot traffic. From what he pieced together in his previous wanderings in the area, the mills never stopped and neither did the slaves, working twelve hours shifts or more.

Shards of brewing emotions jumped out at him from behind the windows of the slave barracks he passed. Even without his abilities, the open hostility, naked fear, and choking apprehension often going hand-in-hand in the glares and looks thrown his way were quite hard to misinterpret.

No smoke rose from the industrial chimneys of Mill Five, but a large number of slaves still bustled on the grounds outside despite the hour. One of the raider guards, his eyes riveted on Dogmeat, revealed that the mill was in the process of being reactivated and that indeed, both Marco and Midea were coordinating the work crews from inside the structure.

"Just turn right an' up da stairs. Big office. Can't miss it."

A few dozen more slaves busied themselves inside, but by the number of eyes that locked on him not three steps up the first ramp, Hog got a distinct impression that little work was actually being conducted that evening. Few met his searching stares and many moved in gaggles, carrying quite the number of inactive auto-axes and working tools; God knew what else was stashed out of sight. Hog did a mental count and grimaced. He only had nine spikes left for his rifle, and while none of the slaves was a Bear Brother, not even remotely, quantity always had a quality of its own. The radroaches in the Old Levels and more recently, the ghouls of Planky Town drove that lesson home.

Hog ascended on metal catwalks and stairs with scant any railing, so much that two men abreast incurred a significant risk of pushing each other to an early death. In light of that, seeing the crew of four workers pretending to work on welding railings along the last stretch between Hog and the office was nearly enough to send him into a paroxysm of hysteric laughter.

"Guys, please. Don't do it," he managed to wrestle out as they righted themselves. Too-thin hands clutched welding tools and hammers. Their eyes flitted between him, his rifle, and Dogmeat, then back again to his rifle. When he sensed determination and desperation harden their minds, he tried again.

"Please. I've nothing against you."

Dogmeat darted ahead as the first slave shouted Midea's name and charged across the catwalk. Ribs cracked and the platform creaked as the dog barreled into the man, lifting him clear off his feet and throwing him back into his unprepared companions. One lost his balance outright, but his scream was cut short as his spine snapped against the edge of a supporting beam. Another stumbled but managed to grab onto the edge of the catwalk with both hands. Dogmeat nearly ripped the first rebel's head off with one bite, collar and all, then tossed him over the edge. The man fell in a drizzle of his own blood. His fellow slave, just freed of the pinning weight, only had the time to raise his hand in defense before Dogmeat's jaws closed around his head and burst it like a ripe fruit.

Hog's stomach threatened to join the rebels even as he took a running leap over the massacre. _'Jesus Christ! Come on!'_ The larger platform supporting the office screeched as he landed in a crouch.

" _ **Dead is dead. I'm saving you ammunition."**_

Biting his tongue against mounting nausea, Hog managed to tune out the pandemonium exploding downstairs just long enough to feel Marco's panic and the razor-sharp focus of another mind, nearly as disciplined as Ashur's in keeping her head in the game. The single image of fire, mayhem, and explosions he glimpsed from her mind made his blood run cold and the rest of him shoot into action.

He couldn't let her trigger the charges. Not yet. That detonator was his ticket to victory.

Time dilated again as his link with Dogmeat deepened. With it came a crippling lance of fear. Fear that the dog would turn on him anyway. Fear that he wouldn't be quick enough to stop Midea's hand. _'Don't stop. Don't think. Keep going. Keep fighting.'_ He slammed into cover against the prefab wall and brought his rifle around into the empty frame of a window.

A railway spike punched through the wall where his neck had been a moment before, grazing his cheek instead. The railway rifle jumped in Marco's hand despite the weak recoil; despair colored the rebel's next thought, mixing with fear as the door right in front of him started to fold like tinfoil.

Midea was lunging for a desk pushed against the far wall, her gaze intent on the detonator set in the eye of a storm of papers and junk. Hog lined up the shot and depressed the trigger; the spike spun and spun and punched into Midea's chest, cracking ribs and puncturing a lung, but there was no stopping her momentum. In the eternal time between two heartbeats, she lost her footing and crashed against the foot of the desk with a wet thud.

The door gave way with a metallic screech; Dogmeat pounced on Marco, drowning the slave's stupefied face under a deluge of stinking fur and teeth. The rebel's snapping bones and gurgling scream became background noises as the impact of Midea's body rattled the desk. The detonator trembled, then tilted over the edge. It spun once, twice, and landed at a precarious angle, a slave to gravity.

Pain radiated from Midea like a physical force. Even as blood dribbled from her lips, she tried to grab the control, missing it by inches as it settled pointing away from her on the floor. In a clear moment of introspection, as his ventricles filled with blood in preparation for the sixth heartbeat, his lingering disgust for the chief collaborator faded some and he found a smidge of respect for this woman. Her selfish disregard for the lives of the 101s in favor of her own people wasn't really that different from Hog's own intentions, even if for years she'd condemned hundreds, thousands of lives by keeping Ashur's industrial machine running.

Then he put a spike into her brain, silencing her pain as she drew a rattling breath. His ventricles squeezed and time resumed its maddening pace on the sixth heartbeat.

Hog took a steadying breath and vaulted into the office. He knelt at Marco's ravaged corpse, searching his pockets and tool belt for extra clips of spikes; his hands came away full, sticky, and gory, but he forced his body to keep moving. He picked up the detonator carefully, turning it around for damage; satisfied, he stuffed it in his jacket pocket and put a roll of duct tape from the desk in the other. A quick thought sent Dogmeat to guard the door against the beating tempo of feet rushing up the catwalks. Then there was only time to close Midea's eyes before he brought down the ripper on her neck.

0 * TTL * 0

Midea's long-planned slave rebellion erupted and was utterly crushed in the span of forty-three minutes. Their leadership literally beheaded, their trump card no longer in their hands, and isolated from the rest of The Pitt, the assembled slaves tried to storm Hog's position, but the catwalks acted as a natural, serpentine chokepoint, and Dogmeat's presence alone terrified all but the bravest or most desperate.

Even when more railway rifles came out from nooks and crannies, none of the rebels had more than atrophied skills to rely upon. Hog, by comparison, really was the Silver Shroud. Their wide, wild shots provided him with extra ammo he sent back their way, trying to avoid more deaths.

As far as good intentions went, the facts forced him to admit it was all a wasted effort. It wasn't long before Krenshaw and several groups of raiders stormed Mill Five through its three different entrances. The fight was short, gruesome, and completely one-sided; Hogarth used the mop-up time to prepare his own trump card, then informed Ashur's second that he'd completed his part of the bargain and needed an escort to the hospital.

The stark lights bathing the hospital's third floor almost made his eyes weep, long-grown accustomed as they were to the dimness and gloom of The Pitt. Even the admittance area on the ground floor hadn't broken away from the theme, resounding with the complaints and groans of a few raiders as slaves in threadbare nurse scrubs moved meekly between them.

The long corridor ahead of him, with its glaring white and soft blue paint, was silent my comparison, echoing only with his steps and that of the two raiders following him like shadows. The blood still clinging to the underside of paws and boots, after a quick scrub and wash in a side room, left faint marks of pink and light green on the immaculate tiles. Darker blood dribbled from the soaked underside of his pack, falling in his wake like breadcrumbs.

The silence didn't carry over from Hog's ears to his sixth sense, however. Several minds crowded in a room only a short ways ahead, with more lingering in nearby rooms. He recognized Ashur's among them; another stood out for a burning mix of curiosity and excitement; but a quick, general read of the others' surface emotions – boredom, eagerness, irritation, a few examples of anxiety - only served to cement his previous suspicions into certainty. His left hand clutched the detonator just a little tighter in the confines of his jacket's pocket.

The sealed, see-through door at the end of the corridor, however, stole him from those grim considerations. The area beyond put the stark cleanliness of his surroundings to shame; a couple of figures covered in yellow hazmat suits walked side by side, offering him their back, heads close together as they poured over a thick ream of papers on a clipboard. Further on, he caught a glimpse of the chrome dome of a working terminal.

He closed his eyes, tentatively deepening the link with a silent Dogmeat to expand his perception. Two more scores of minds flickered at the edge of his senses, then more, simpler, cocooned, and unthinking.

The phantom echoes of baby wails in his ears – Amata's unborn children - shattered his concentration. Hog found himself stranded back in his body, hit by a dizzy spell even as his legs continued on. He barely heard the order to stop, and only did so when Dogmeat's teeth pulled at his sleeve. He could swear he heard the Master's rumbling chuckle from wherever he'd tucked himself away for a, hopefully, long wait.

Hog shook his head, then offered the dog a nod. The two guards exchanged puzzled glances; their grip on their rifles tightened. Then one grabbed the handle of the sliding door in front of them and ushered Hog into a large locker room.

Ashur stood against the far wall, arms crossed, the focal point of over a dozen, heavily armed raiders fanning out along the two rows of lockers. Their weapons were already pointed at him; by contrast, the Lord of The Pitt was unarmed and frowning, an expression that deepened the heavy lines on his face and darkened his eyes. Beside him was a much shorter woman with just a hint of grey in her hair. Her dark skin was lightly wrinkled, yet completely unmarred by the plague. The top half of a hazmat suit was tied in a knot around her waist; the white coat on top left little doubt of her identity as the Doctor, Sandra Kundanika.

"Look – look at the green in his eyes," she said. A shiver ran up Hog's arms as she raked him with a wide-eyed gaze of pure, unbridled wonder that reminded Hog of Moira, though less unhinged. "It's him. Perfect integration. Just like Dr. Presper always theorized. My dear, he's the –"

Ashur's silencing wave was sharp, but his words and thoughts carried a hint of warmth that never touched him during their previous meeting in Haven. "In a moment." His eyes settled again on Hog after a quick pass at Dogmeat. "Let's settle our business first, Mitchell. I thought I told you Wernher's head was enough. I wanted the other leaders alive."

"They didn't cooperate." Keeping his left hand stuck in his pocket, Hogarth shrugged off his pack from his other shoulder; he settled it on the ground, then gave it a good kick.

The Doctor took a step to the side to avoid Marco's head as the three heads rolled onto the floor, unwrapping from their blood-soaked packages. A smattering of mutters bounced back and forth in the room, but Hog only had eyes for Ashur. His face went deadly still as Midea's head came to a stop against the toe of his power-armored foot.

"Do you –" Ashur closed his eyes, struggling to keep his countenance. "Do you have any idea – no, of course you do." Cold fury clouded Ashur's thoughts; the Lord's hands twitched, his neck muscles tensed, a moment away from issuing the command that'd splatter him all over the walls. "It doesn't matter. I'll find someone else, even if I have to storm and torch the entire North." His hand rose. Dogmeat lowered on its haunches, ready to spring.

" _ **Do you want him to shoot you that badly?"**_

' _Sarcasm is beneath you.'_

"You don't want to give that order," Hog said. "I'm putting my hands up now. Very slowly."

The generous administration of duct-tape that secured the detonator to his palm and his fingers over the trigger made the gesture a bit clunky, but the stiffening of Ashur's entire stance and the lord's single, internal curse, mirrored by louder, fouler ones from the few guards who put two and two together were worth the discomfort. Hog tried not to smile; it wasn't hard as his gaze rested on the Doctor and he contemplated his next few haphazardly planned moves.

"I don't have to explain what this does, right?" he needled the older man, taking a bold step forward. Ashur's hand hung in the air and Hog knew that the former paladin wished for nothing but to let it fall and watch him become a fine, crimson mist before his eyes.

Seconds ticked by; entire silent conversations took place through looks, eyebrows, and shrugs, but none touched Ashur, even if he was the topic of each and every gesture.

Then an order came.

"Lower your weapons," Ashur seethed. If looks alone could kill, no amount of freak regeneration could have saved Hog in that moment. "Your terms. Speak."

"You know them. Train, supplies, 101s. All of them, and enough hazmat suits for the women you have in the quarantine ward over there. Send one of your flunkies with me and I'll give them the detonator when we're in the clear. Or you can come yourself. I couldn't care less." Ashur's tilt of the head might have been a nod in the right light, but Hog wasn't done. "That's what I'd say if you'd kept your word, but surprise surprise, you didn't. So while you have the goddamned train prepped and take the 101s out of that ghetto, I'll have a chat with your wife. Alone." He tilted his head to indicate the two sliding doors that lead into the adjacent rooms. "And that applies to those idiots you have lurking in there as well. One disarmed runner outside this door; everyone else off this floor and no funny business. Believe me, I'll _know_."

For a moment, Hog wondered if he'd just overplayed his hand. A single vein started throbbing on Ashur's temple; he looked ready to throttle him with his own hands.

"I'll stay."

Hog blinked. Ashur's head turned around so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. "Like hell you will!"

The Doctor's hand found her husband's forearm and she looked up into his eyes. Hog recoiled in confusion as his sixth sense picked up worry and affection from both of them, sitting on top a brewing mix of interconnected emotions.

"It's okay. He wants answers and I can make him understand." Her smile was a small thing. Hog got a distinct impression more was passing between them in those few moments than he could hope to pick up, or simply understand. "Please. Trust me."

Ashur tenderly squeezed his wife's shoulder, then glared a silent promise at him. Within the next minute or so, the heads were gathered and all the raiders but one filed out and took the stairs. The Lord of The Pitt was the last one out, closing the door behind him and stomping down the stairs, but he didn't retreat any further than the hospital's lobby, together with most of his men.

And then they were alone, after a fashion.

Dogmeat lay down in front of the door, its idleness a practiced front. Without his privileged access to the dog's mind, Hog knew he'd have been fooled too. He sat down on one of the benches and fished out a cigarette, popping it in his mouth. Lighting a match with one hand, however, turned out to be beyond his fledgling skills as a smoker.

"Here, let me." Hog fixed the Doctor with a hostile, suspicious look. She showed him her empty hands. "I'm a scientist, not a fighter. And we both know I couldn't harm you even if I wanted." He detected no deception in her words. Now that Ashur had left, she was dominated by a burning, almost pathological curiosity, but it wasn't enough to completely conceal the old, deeply-set fear that made her hesitate for a moment when he nodded.

As the nicotine rush burned down his lungs, he found his tongue tied into knots. His one question, which would probably change nothing, remained stuck against the roof of his mouth. After a moment, she took the initiative.

"Are you with the Institute?"

He frowned. "The what now?" The words rolled out before he could even think of bluffing. "I'm from Vault 101." He almost added 'born and bred', but then the moment passed. _'Does it ring any bell, this Institute?'_

" _ **None."**_

Sandra twirled the matches between two fingers, then turned around, nodding to herself. "Vault 101. History does have a twisted way to repeat itself." This time, when he tried to get a read on her, to understand what gibberish she was spouting – she _had_ to already know where he came from - all he perceived was a profound sense of peace and serenity, all revolving around the nitid memory of a newborn giggling as she was tickled. Dumbfounded, Hog tried to bypass that, but the memory stopped him at every turn. He could feel her mind as clearly as he could see her in front of him, but it was like a wall, thin and only partially see-through, had dropped between them.

Dogmeat growled. _**"She's trained."**_

' _Trained? In what?'_

" _ **What do you think? Resisting a psyker's influence. Rough and sloppy, but it's enough to keep someone like you out. The Master would have no issue breaking it, and her."**_

She was studying him; he realized that he'd remained silent maybe too long this time. Another puff on his cigarette earned him a few seconds, all spent berating himself for his hesitation. Again, she broke the silence first.

"I ran tests on your blood. The strain of Forced Evolutionary Virus you were exposed to was developed years ago at the Institute by Dr. Brian Virgil. I know because I was his personal assistant at the time, but there were… issues. I thought all samples and the research were destroyed when Patient Zero staged a rebellion and destroyed our facility, but apparently, I was mistaken. Where were you contaminated?"

Hog kept his face blank at the slightly familiar name. _'Where – right, Moira's son. Didn't she name him after some Virgil guy?'_ As the dots began to connect in a cascade effect, the memory holding up Sandra's mental defense changed radically.

Gone was the giggling baby. A massive figure, green and impossibly muscular, stood naked as everything around him went up in flames and smoke. With it came a single word, a name.

"Adam," Hog mouthed in confusion, then frowned. _'I know I've heard that one before.'_

" _ **The intelligent mutant in the church mentioned him once before you axed him. And she's just tricked you. Well done."**_

A naked spike of primordial, abject fear shattered the Doctor's mental defense. The self-professed scientist backed away against a locker, her body wracked by a shudder. "You - You're like him." She swallowed, took a steadying breath, then let it out. She walked up to him and picked a cigarette from his open packet, then lit it with his matches. Hog was too confused and curious, despite himself, to even try and stop her.

Slowly, her defense came up again, but Hog had got nothing beyond that single, totalizing image of a super mutant towering amidst a raging inferno. After a few long puffs, she found her voice again. "He – He too could worm his way into your mind. Read your thoughts. He almost drove Dr. Virgil mad, played a number on Moira before we learned how – Oh, I knew it! It's so like her to smuggle a sample away."

Hog bit the inside of his cheek, but there was no way to take back whatever tell she'd seen on his face. Wasn't he the one who had the cheating powers? Encouraged by his silence, she pressed on, "Is she alive? Where? Does she have more? It's been years, I thought –"

"Enough!" Hog snapped, both at her and himself. All the new information ran circles in his head. He needed time to sit down and parse through it, to decide if he should even bother to care about any of it. So there was a place with more mad scientists like Moira churning out DNA-altering serums and creating mutant freaks on the weekends. None of that had relevance right there and then, in that locker room. _'Now's not the right time for this.'_ Soon, if he was smart, Ashur would have his men comb through the mills, the mines, and the power plant for the explosive charges. _'She's just buying time.'_ "I'm the one asking questions here, not you."

She pursed her lips but then exhaled. "Fine. I presume you want to know why all of this is happening? My husband's probably mentioned the cure I've been working on."

Hog had to unclench his teeth from around the cigarette's butt to answer. "I'm no goddamned scientist, but I know how radiation works. You can't 'cure' it. You cure the symptoms. Once the damage's done, it's done."

"How can you say that, when you're the living, breathing proof of the contrary?"

He came back swinging. "So that's it? You're treating people with this FEV serum?" Memories of the super mutants at The Crossing, clad in the rags of Vault blues ran rampant before his eyes. "Don't try and fuck with me. You just said all samples were destroyed."

Sandra lifted a hand in a placating gesture, then sat down on the bench opposite to him and rubbed her eyes. "The whole story's more complicated than that. And no, I'm not using the FEV. I wouldn't even know where to start to synthesize a strain without the base material; even with that, it took one of the greatest minds in the Institute and our entire team years to create and stabilize the strain Moira used on you. What I'm aiming for is… well, if you called it the FEV's progenitor, you wouldn't be mistaken."

Hog swallowed a threat and offered a stiff nod instead, not trusting himself to speak.

"Look at me." She pointed at her face; again he noticed how her complexion was spoiled by fatigue lines and a few wrinkles but showed none of the boils and lesions that seemed omnipresent on nearly every face in The Pitt. "Do I look sick to you? I'm not. I've been living here for almost two years and I grew up in an isolated environment, not unlike your Vault. My Marie was conceived here."

"How?"

"Your mother never told you about the birds and the bees?"

"She died in childbirth."

"Ah. Stupid joke." Sandra rubbed her hands together "I guess the words 'Pan-Immunity Virion Project' mean nothing to you?" When he shook his head no, she took a few moments to gather her thoughts. Then her defense vanished, allowing Hog to sense her feelings once again. Despite their situation, the olive branch wasn't lost to him.

"Before the Great War, the United States government commissioned a gene therapy that would grant their soldiers blanket immunity from biological weapons and radiation. A few years later, a vaccine was synthesized that induced every cell in the patient's body to begin mitosis, but then stopped the process after the DNA double helix was duplicated, before the cell started splitting in two. The result was an individual with a quad-helix DNA structure, nigh unassailable by radiation and pretty much any toxic agent." Sandra brought her hands together. "No radiation, no mutation, at least of the induced kind. Unfortunately, that research also resulted in the development of the first batch of Forced Evolutionary Virus; West Tek got involved and the funding was shifted from the PVP to the FEV. Fast-forward to the early 2250s, the research data fell into the Institute's lap; they perfected the PVP so that it'd carry down to the next generation, then dosed the entire population. Myself included."

Heat tickled his fingers as the cigarette burned on; a tiny heap of ashes was accumulating on his knee. Hog shook himself and leaned back, frowning. Even as he sensed the naked honesty behind her every word and glimpsed random images and faces, his mind struggled to accept what she was saying. Something – several somethings – didn't add up, but when it came to pinning the issues, they squirreled just out of his grasp.

"Why?" he bit out. "Why did you select pregnant women, if you're trying to reverse-engineer it?"

' _Why did she have to die?'_

The Doctor was silent for a long time, but never looked away. Twice, it looked like she would speak, but the words died on her lips. Finally, as Hog's irritation was just about to soar, they came out.

"I was too young to be part of the PVP's development and later, I only learned the theory. And while my husband did his best, the equipment I have here is sub-par, my resources are limited, and my assistants… it'd take years for them to be up to the task." She licked her lips. "To replicate the PVP and ensure that it would carry over to the next generation, I needed test subjects as close as possible to the Institute's population. That means subjects with pure DNA. Everyone who's lived on the surface for a certain amount of time acquires background mutations; largely inconsequential for day to day life, but enough to be useless for the first phase of testing."

"Why. Pregnant. Women?!"

Sandra winced and rubbed her hands. "Fertility had to be assured. Past pregnancies weren't a sufficient discriminant, not with how insidious this plague is. I – We couldn't afford to waste resources on even a barren test subject."

Hog shot to his feet and the woman recoiled, hitting the locker behind her. "Please. If there'd been another solution, I'd have taken it."

"No other solution? No other solution?! You should have all left this fucking place years ago! Why are you two so obsessed with a bunch of industrial mills?! Settle down somewhere else!" Hog's hands began shaking; instead of hitting her, he started pacing. "Do you have any idea how many people lived in the Vault? How many you condemned to certain death and madness in that fucking ghetto?!" The Vaulties' words filled some of the gaps in hers, producing realization; he wheeled around, jabbing an accusing finger in her face. "How many miscarriages have you forced when they didn't meet your fucking requirements?!"

"Forty-three," she said, steel in her voice. Hog was taken aback. "I remember all of them; any one of them could have been my Marie." She closed her eyes, blinking away a single stray tear. "I'm a mother too; I know what I've done and I _know_ it's inexcusable. It's a burden I'll carry forever. But I have the cure. It's ready. It works."

"Your _burden_ –" Hog stopped as her last few words registered. The pride that infused every syllable made his blood boil. "You succeeded?"

"I can show you. Just let me speak to the man outside."

Hog bit the inside of his cheek. Dogmeat remained uncharacteristically silent; its eyes closed, it looked to the world like it was napping, of all times. No amount of breathing could calm down and unravel the utter chaos banging against the insides of his skull. The honesty and naked regret rolling off Sandra in waves didn't help the matter, nor did his own seething disgust at her hypocrisy. ' _All of those children could have been her Marie my ass! None of them were Ashur's own flesh and blood.'_

In the end, the burning need to see a tangible, logical thread in all the madness won out.

Sandra knocked on the sliding door. "Peter, right?"

"That's me, ma'am. You good? Things sounded pretty crazy in there."

"I'm unharmed, thank you. Please, go to the intercom and tell my assistants to send Marie and the nanny here."

0 * TTL * 0

In his teenage years, the young woman standing on the threshold and holding a swaddled baby in her arms had been the subject of many a dream and fantasy. In her presence, his heart would sometimes skip a beat, or he'd trip on his own words. At the time, he didn't know better and called it love.

That was a lifetime ago. But Hog's surprise at seeing Suzie Mack morphed quickly into something that felt a lot like relief, before it too was drowned by a tide of unspoken questions and ghostly echoes.

"Hogarth?" She sounded exhausted in her shock. Her eyes flitted immediately to the Doctor, then back to him and down to his packaged hand. Her confusion was almost palpable. "Is that really you? But – how?"

"It's a long story. I… I've seen your brother." _'And your father.'_ "Why don't you sit down?"

Suzie nodded robotically, then froze as she noticed Dogmeat laying out on the floor. Her arms wrapped protectively around the baby.

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay. It won't harm you." He offered her what he hoped looked like a reassuring smile, but every muscle in his face felt like rubber.

She edged around the dog and to the nearby bench, careful not to awake the sleeping child. Once sitting, she looked up at him. He didn't need a sixth sense to see the hesitation and sorrow written on her face.

"Have you -"

"Wally told me," he managed.

"I tried to stop her," she insisted, "but she acted like she was possessed and –"

"I know, Suzie." He went to squeeze her shoulder but stopped. What if a single touch was all the Master needed? "Don't beat yourself up, okay? You're not the one at fault here." _'That one's all on me.'_

He studied her throughout the exchange. Her face, her hands, the rhythm of her breathing. The confident, sometimes haughty young woman he remembered growing up admiring from afar had wilted; she had an alien fragility about her that reminded him of many of the 101s caged up in the Arrott Building ghetto. At the same time, she appeared well fed; her pale skin was as unmarred as the doctor's and sharp coughing never cut her words short, few as they were.

"She was the first to be immunized," Sandra explained in a low voice. She stood a bit to the side, looking at her daughter in Suzie's hands, "but many of the others have been given the perfected formula as it's produced."

"I – I didn't know you and Butch were expecting," he told Suzie, trying to get a grip on the situation. Too late he realized he must have hit an open wound, because Suzie's face fell.

"We aren't anymore," she whispered, squeezing the sleeping Marie. "I don't want to hear that asshole's name ever again."

There was a story there, but it got pushed quite down on the priority list. He didn't even need to voice his question; only had to glare it. The Doctor complied.

"There were… complications with the first batch of the vaccine," she admitted. "Her DNA duplicated, but the fetus' didn't. The problem has been resolved now, but -"

"My body rejected my own son," Suzie half-spat, half-whimpered, "but I'm still lactating, and Marie needs to be fed." The baby stirred at that, moaning as she started to wake up. Suzie sniffled and adjusted her head in the crook of her arms, then started to hum and coo in a broken, halting voice.

It was clear to Hog that the Doctor wanted to take her daughter into her arms, or just touch her, but at the same time, she didn't dare come any closer to him. He took a sick satisfaction in the small gesture of denying her, if only for a few moments, what she had denied to dozens of people he'd known all his life.

At this point, he was half-tempted to unleash the Master on her. He'd probably appreciate the meal. "This? This is what you told him you'd make me _understand_?!"

The Doctor edged around him, trying to keep a line of sight with Marie. Panic bubbled under the surface, twisting her expression, ready to explode. "Please, just listen. With just a little more refining, the cure will work on anyone, not only subjects with a pure genetic code. But there's still a problem, something the Institute didn't account for because they didn't need to: the immunization will prevent further mutation, but cannot individuate and correct DNA that's already damaged or mutated. As it is, it'll stop the workers from going mad or turning into trogs, but it won't heal them completely, even if they're cycled out to the waystations before they are inoculated. They'll all remain sterile. But you – you hold the solution to that, right here! Don't you see?"

She smiled then, frantic and hopeful and completely blind. "With your blood as a baseline, I know I can integrate some of your regenerative abilities into the vaccine. I'll convince my husband to send your friends to one of the waystations to recover, and once our work is complete, they'll all be healed. Try to imagine it. Think beyond The Pitt! No one will have to fear anymore from sickness and mutation. It'll be a new dawn for the human race, just like Dr. Presper always –"

Marie's sudden baby wail cut off her mother's rambling vision. Dogmeat shooting to its feet like someone just set his fur on fire pushed whatever Dr. Presper always did or said straight out of Hog's mind.

" _ **We must go! Now!"**_

The glass of the single, narrow window in the room began to tremble in its frame, shaking off the fresh drops of rain that clung to its surface. Hog rushed up just in time to see smokey streaks descend from the clouds and criss-cross The Pitt's skyline around Haven in the distance. A moment later, a veritable inferno swallowed the decadent tower in a dazzling, deafening blast.

Suzie and Marie screamed. Hog suddenly felt like a fool for having a detonator duct-taped to his hand. He stared, almost mesmerized, as tiltwing aircrafts broke through the cover of the clouds and descended upon The Pitt like giant birds of prey relegated to the holo-vids.

' _These are Wernher's friends?'_

The eternal gloom came alive with light. Thick streams of red-hot lasers and barrages of screaming missiles bathed The Pitt from above; tracer rounds and the odd missile answered back. Dogmeat was shouting in his mind, but his ears were filled by the words blasting from dozens of loudspeakers, challenging the din of battle.

"Criminal scum of The Pitt, we are the Enclave. By the law of the United States of America and in the presence of God Almighty, you've been found guilty of murder, slavery, and treason. Prepare to meet your judgment."

 **End of Book I**

 _AN: The Pan-Immunity Virion Project is actually canon Fallout material. I went back and checked Sandra and Ashur's dialogue on the cure and really, what they describe is a more generic PVP in all but name. I wonder if the writers at Bethesda wanted to hint at that, somehow, or if it's just a coincidence._

 _My thanks to_ _ **DmCrebel25, ScrimshawPen, Paladin Bailey, colstrent, Jacob Sailer (x2), Alternate NonFiction**_ _for their feedback, reviews, and support._

 _And with this, The Thin Line comes to an end. I won't deny it, it feels really good to check the "Complete" option for this story. Not because I don't like it. Far from it. Many of you who're reading both of my stories, considering the imbalance of shit thrown Hog's way, probably won't believe me when I say that I… "prefer" isn't the right term, as an author should never play favoritism among his characters… that I sympathize more with Hogarth than I do with John, but I do. Even if the psychic side of his narration was a bitch and a half to write and balance out; even if I had to go to some dark places that made me feel sick for days to write a few scenes; even if this story has played best man to Missing in Action for a very long time. Stretching the comparison a bit, you could say that Hogarth is my Tyrion Lannister, as outlandish as that may sound._

 _I would like to extend my thanks to all of you people who've supported TTL during this crazy year and a half. In this short time, The Thin Line has reached far, far beyond my rosiest expectations, supported by you loyal reviewers and by a small – at least compared to many other successful stories – but faithful number of readers. And I know from the statistics that there're more of you out there who've read well into this story than the names on the alert or favorites list. To you too, silent and invisible readers, goes my hope that this story entertained you and maybe left you something by the end of it._

 _Alright, enough sappiness. TTL will obviously have a sequel – as ScrimshawPen said it, in a way, the real story's just about started – and while I'll be working on it in the shadows, I'm pretty sure the first chapter probably won't be out before the summer. Missing in Action has been criminally ignored, updates-wise, since August, and it's high time I rectified that. I'll make doubly sure to post an update/sneak peek here when the sequel's up, of course._

 _Also, because it never hurts and with my luck, this fic could be hit by a copyright strike just as I cross the finishing line, I'll state it again: Fallout belongs to Bethesda Softworks and this is a no-profit endeavor within the terms of copyright or something like that._

 _Thank you for reading. Don't forget to leave a_ _ **review**_ _. Until next time,_

 _Alexeij_

 _Edit 08/01/2018: Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by / that here, obedient to the laws of grammar, PartyPat22 beta-readed._


	24. TTL Dramatis Personae

**The Thin Line: Dramatis Personae**

 _On the advice of_ _ **ScrimshawPen**_ _, I've redacted this handy character list for TTL, updated to the last published chapter. The characters are sorted by faction and/or location._

* * *

 **THE LEGACY** : The Master's Heritage, written in the genes of the Vault Dweller and inherited by all her direct descendants.

- **The Guardian:** Once known simply as the dog Dogmeat, he was changed by the Master's will and his DNA spliced with FEV and snake's features. Now an immortal agent of the Master's Legacy, forced to obey by the Compulsion.

 **[Kristen Dufrense]:** The Vault Dweller and Founder of Arroyo, Mother of the Legacy and Alpha.

\- **[Ian Cole]** : Kristen's paramour, killed by Super Mutants at Necropolis.

\- **[The Son]**

\- **Dr. James:** An orphan raised by the Followers in the NCR, he took Catherine's family name and followed Lyons' expedition to the East Coast. After the death of his wife, hid himself and his son in Vault 101. Currently collaborates with the Talon Company in D.C.

\- **[Dr. Catherine Mitchell]** : His wife, daughter to a small time doctor in the Mojave. Died shortly after childbirth at Vault 101 during the Great Plague of 2256 (actually died of childbirth at the Jefferson Memorial).

\- **Hogarth Mitchell** : formerly pariah of Vault 101, currently the only living member of the Legacy who's been successfully exposed to the FEV and has awakened both the Master's psychic powers and his fractured personality.

\- **[The Daughter]** : The Arroyo Elder in 2242, died when the Enclave stormed the village.

\- **Brigadier General Aki Navache:** The Chosen One, The Iron General of the NCR, a war hero and a war criminal in the same breath.

\- **[Angela Bishop]:** The prize daughter of John Bishop, led to an early grave by alcohol and drug abuse.

\- **Mr. Bishop:** Aki's son by Angela, Angela took the identity of his father to the grave. Currently, one of the leading kingpins in New Reno.

\- **Miria** **Navache** : Aki's wife by shotgun marriage, she took to isolationism after her son's death.

\- **[Sen. Albert Navache]** : Arroyo's Senator and Aki's heir, killed by the Brotherhood of Steel in the Congress Bombing of 2273.

\- - **[Rachael Navache]:** Aki's daughter by a tribal woman during the Vipers campaign, died of sickness doing time in Tibbets Prison.

 **VAULT 101**

 _Vault 101 was invaded by Talon Company during the first act of the story, "Buried", after Dr. James Mitchell and Mr. Burke struck a bargain. Most of the population, and especially the fertile women of childbearing age, were sold to the Pitt Slavers through Paradise Falls, while a number of able-bodied youths and personnel were conscripted to run Vault 101's generator and hydroponics, as well as help with Project Purity._

 _Vault 101 is currently a Talon Company FOB._

 **[Overseer Adam Leninger]** : Overseer during the Great Plague of 2256 that greatly depopulated Vault 101.

 **Overseer Alphonse Almodovar** : Former Overseer of Vault 101, dying in the Pitt from the TDC and grief over his daughter's fate.

 **[Stanley Armstrong]** : Leader of Vault 101's MaintDep, died of a heart attack during a giant ant attack in the Old Levels.

 **-Beatrice Armstrong** : Stanley's daughter, driven completely mad by the TDC and The Breeder's psychic aura in The Pitt.

 **-Steve Armstrong** : Beatrice's adopted son, conscripted by Talon Company.

 **[Allen Mack]** : Patriarch of the Mack family, infected with the FEV by Gabriel at The Crossing. Killed by Irwin Gallows.

 **-[Gloria Mack, nee Armstrong]** : Stanley's daughter, died during Talon's invasion of Vault 101.

 **-[Officer Stevie Mack]** : Mack's eldest son, killed by Beppo's raider gang in the Old Levels of Vault 101.

 **-Wally Mack** : The prodigious son, he's the unofficial leader of the Vaultie Ghetto at the Arrott building, in the Pitt. He's got a lame leg.

 **-[Amata Mack, nee Almodovar]** : his wife, fell from the Veterans' Bridge into the Shit River at the Pitt while escaping the Hospital to protect her unborn children.

 **[Officer John Kendall]** : Senior security officer, killed by Talon Company during the invasion of Vault 101.

 **-[Mary Kendall]:** His wife. Driven mad and cannibalistic by the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion (TDC). Accidentally killed by Hogarth Mitchell.

 **-Monica Kendal** : Their youngest daughter. Segregated at the Arrott Building in the Pitt, cared after by Janice Wilkins.

 **Ellen DeLoria** : Vault 101's alcoholic janitor, conscripted by Talon Company.

 **-Butch DeLoria** : The Vault's hairdresser, he volunteered to join Talon Company to protect his mother.

 **-Suzie DeLoria, nee Mack** : Butch's wife. The first patient successfully treated by Dr. Kundanika's iteration of the PVP – or the "Cure" - she lost her unborn child in the process. Now, she's Marie's nanny.

 **[Chief Paul Hannon Sr.]** : Vault 101's Chief of Security, killed by Beppo's raider gang during Talon's invasion.

 **-Vikki Hannon** : His wife. Sold to the Pitt Slavers.

 **-[Paul Hannor Jr.]** : Their son. Infected with the FEV by Gabriel at The Crossing. Killed by Wernher.

 **-Christine Hannon, nee Kendall** : Selected as a test subject for Dr. Kundanika's Pan-Immunity Virion Project in the Pitt.

 **[Officer Wilkins]** : Killed during Talon's invasion of Vault 101.

 **-[Jim Wilkins]** : His son, driven crazy by the TDC, killed by the Ghetto's security.

 **-Janice Wilkins** : His daughter, currently at the Arrott Building's Ghetto. Takes care of Monica Kendall.

 **Herman Gomez:** Hogarth's former martial arts instructor, rescued from Paradise Falls' slavers at The Crossing. Currently with the BoS.

 **-Pepper Gomez:** His wife. Shipped to The Pitt. Condition unknown.

 **-Freddie Gomez** : Their son. Crippled with a chronic respiratory condition after a violent beatodown, he was conscripted by Talon Company.

 **[Old Lady Palmer]** : A kind old lady, she was executed by Mr. Burke as a statement in front of Vault 101's population.

 **-[Lucy Palmer]** : Her daughter. Died during the Great Plague of 2256.

 **-Dr. Jonas Palmer** : Her grandson. Dr. James' Mitchell former assistant and minder, was rescued from the Crossing. Currently with the BoS.

 **Francis Gorobitz** : Young kid who witnessed the giant ant attack in the Old Levels. Driven mad and cannibalistic by the TDC at the Arrott Building's Ghetto.

 **[Tom Holden]** : Vault 101 pariah, infected with the FEV by Gabriel at the Crossing. Killed by Irving Gallows.

 **-Mary Holden** : His wife. Rescued from the Crossing, currently with the BoS.

 **[Edwin Brotch]** : One of Vault 101's teachers. Killed and eaten by the mad cannibals at the Arrott Building's Ghetto.

 **[Officer Wolfe]** : Killed during Talon Company's invasion of Vault 101.

 **Officer O'Brien** : Confined in the Arrott Building's Ghetto at the Pitt. Still acts as Security.

 **Officer Park** : Confined in the Arrott Building's Ghetto at the Pitt. Still acts as Security.

 **[Officer Richards]:** Killed by Beppo's raider gang in the Old Levels of Vault 101.

 **[Officer Taylor]:** Killed by Talon Company during the invasion of Vault 101.

 **-Agnes Taylor** : His wife. Fate unkown.

 **[Floyd Lewis]** : Hog's coworker at MaintDep. Killed and eaten by the mad cannibals at the Arrott Building's Ghetto.

 **[Jeremiah Hill]** : Infected with the FEV by Gabriel at The Crossing. Killed by the BoS.

 **TALON COMPANY**

 _Talon Company is the premiere mercenary outfit in Maryland and Virginia in 2277. Financed and co-owned by Alistair Tenpenny and Daniel Littlehorn, it was recently hired in bulk by Mr. Burke to run a number of long-term operations, from restarting Project Purity to occupying Vault 101. With the occupation of Vault 101, the Company has obtained a large number of working Pip-Boys._

 **Alistair Tenpenny:** The senile British founder of Tenpenny Tower and co-founder of Talon Company.

 **Daniel Littlehorn** : Founder of Littlehorn & Associates and co-founder of Talon Company.

 **Commander Jabsco:** Talon Company's current military leader, he reports exclusively to Littlehorn and Tenpenny, in that order.

 **Mr. Burke** : The ruthless patron of Talon Company, he takes a very hands-on approach in supervising the operations he's paying for.

 **-Dr. James Mitchell** : Once a Follower, he gave Talon access to Vault 101 in exchange for their support in rebuilding Project Purity.

 **THE REGULATORS**

 _The Regulators do their best to enforce law and justice in the Maryland Wastes between D.C. and the Deadlands, home to the Super Mutants. Sworn enemies of raiders, slavers, and Talon Company, they compensate their limited numbers with skills, guts, determination, and just a bit of crazy._

 **Sonora Cruz** : The idealistic leader of the Regulators, personally led the assault on The Crossing with glider and rocket-launcher to free as many Vaulties as possible and hamstring the trade lines between Paradise Falls and The Pitt.

 **Sheriff Simms** : The leader of the Regulators' garrison in Megaton. He took Hogarth under his wing and trained him in mind and body.

 **[Mace]:** A Regulator from Hood City in the north of the Capital Wastes, was killed during the amphibious assault on the Paradise Falls' barges.

 **Javier:** An elderly Regulator.

 **MacKinnon, Chester:** Regulators wounded during the amphibious assault on the barges.

 **Lucy West, Mendoza, Stockholm, Billy Creel, Hogarth Mitchell** et al: Regulators in Megaton.

 **MEGATON**

 _Megaton is a bustling trading town just outside Vault 101. The Regulators have a strong presence here, in large part due to the working water purifier in the town, but the town itself is a hotbed for trouble, its soul contended by Cromwell's Children of the Atom, the kingpin Moriarty, and the Regulators themselves._

 **Confessor Cromwell** : Spiritual leader of the largest congregation of Children of the Atom in a hundred miles, he's a fanatic who won't tolerate any slandering or offense to Atom.

 **-Mother Maya:** His wife, and the day-to-day leader of the Children. She coordinates the work crews expanding and maintaining Megaton, as well as smoothing her husband's sharper edges.

 **Dr. Moira Brown** : A British immigrant recruited by the Institute, she worked as Dr. Brian Virgil's second assistant on the FEV Project until Adam's disastrous escape. Currently an eccentric shut-in trader in Megaton after a bad run-in with the Children a few years ago.

 **-Andreij Sokholov** : Her husband. A Boston native from the large Slavic-descended community living close to Boston's Dockyard.

 **-Brian Sokholov** : Their four-year-old son, named after Dr. Brian Virgil.

 **Judith Lebovitz:** A Vault 101 escapee, she vanished from Megaton after she and Moira failed to de-activate the bomb there, drawing the Children's lasting ire.

 **Sheriff Simms** : The leader of the Regulators in Megaton and the face of the law there. Together with Lucy West, he rescued Hogarth from the Old Levels in Vault 101.

 **-Harden Simms** : His ten-year-old son, already a Regulator in training.

 **Billy Creel** : A former caravan guard-turned-Regulator, Maggie's adoptive father.

 **-Maggie Creel** : the nine-year-old survivor of a raider attack, adopted by Billy.

 **Lucy West** : An Arefu native, she joined the Regulators and is stationed at Megaton. Together with Sheriff Simms, she rescued Hogarth from the Old Levels in Vault 101.

 **-Ian West** : Lucy's younger brother.

 **Colin Moriarty:** Megaton's kingpin and richest citizen, smart enough to keep one step ahead of the Regulators. Owns Moriarty's Saloon and holds debt over many heads.

 **-Gobb** : Moriarty's ghoul indentured servant.

 **-Nova** : One of Moriarty's prostitutes, a Jet addict.

 **-Jericho** : An elderly former raider, he's Moriarty's lead enforcer and a part-time guard for the Stahls.

 **-[Silver]** : One of Moriarty's prostitutes, she ran to the hills with caps and chems and was "found" dead from overdose by Jericho.

 **Andy Stahl** : The co-owner of the Brass Lantern and the brahmin pens, he runs the latter and manages relationships with Rivet City and Canterbury Commons. Moriarty's chief rival in Megaton.

 **Jenny Stahl** : Co-owner of the Brass Lantern and the brahmin pens, she runs the former.

 **Leo Stahl** : A good-for-nothing layabout, addicted to Jet.

 **SPRINGVALE – TYSONS**

 **[Beppo]** : Leader of Beppo's Gang, killed by Sheriff Simms and Lucy West in the Old Levels of Vault 101 with most of his gang.

 **[Ryan Briggs]** : A wannabe chemist who produced and sold toxic molerat meat for Beppo's Gang, killed by the Regulators in Tysons's Square metro station.

 **CANTERBURY COMMONS TRADERS**

" **Crazy" Wolfgang** : A trader of odds and ends, he's one of the Regulators' most trusted informants.

 **THE D.C. BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL**

 _Their numbers dwindling after twenty years of war of attrition in D.C. and further lowered by the Outcast's secession, the D.C. Brotherhood is negotiating an alliance with the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel, who had seceded from the West Coast Elders at the turn of the century for reasons of their own. Their goal is to identify the super mutants' FEV reserves and destroy them, as well as secure the D.C. ruins and an arsenal to fight off the looming threat of the Enclave._

 **Elder Owyn Lyons:** Elderly leader of the breakaway East-Coast Chapter. Lately, his health has taken a turn for the worst.

 **-[Margaret Lyons]** : His wife, killed by Circle of Steel operatives embedded into his chapter after Owyn defied the High Elder's directives and the Codex.

 **-Star Paladin Sarah Lyons** : Their only daughter. An elite warrior and leader of the Albatross's expedition to Fort Constantine. Until a short time ago, she was the Chapter's Sentinel. Demoted to allow Arthur Maxson's promotion.

 **Sentinel Arthur Maxson** : The last scion of the Maxson line. Trained and educated for leadership since a young age, he was promoted to Sentinel by Elder Lyons to try and mend relationships with the Outcasts and the Midwesterners.

 **Head Scribe Reginald Rothschild** : Leads the Liberty Prime project, Elder Lyons' long-time friend and consultant.

 **High Scribe Elizabeth Jameson:** The youngest High Scribe, proctor of the Order of the Quill. Leads the field team that recovers and studies Gabriel's remains and Hogarth's mutated physiology.

 **High Scribe Peabody** : Proctor of the Order of the Shield.

 **High Scribe Bowditch** : Proctor of the Order of the Sword.

 **Scribe Agincourt** : A younger Scribe involved with Paladin Kodiak.

 **Star Paladin Stella Cross** : A veteran Paladin that was turned into a cyborg, she's Elder Lyons' bodyguard and fellow chess player.

 **Paladin Commander Tristan** : Responsible for coordinating the day-to-day operations at the Citadel, now commands the garrison at Fort Constantine.

 **Paladin Jensen** : Wounded during the taking of Fort Constantine.

 **[Knight Artemis]** : Killed during in a super mutant ambush at Fort Constantine. Sarah Lyons gifted his ripper to Hogarth Mitchell.

 **Knight Varham: G** ot into a scuffle with the Midwesterners over the treatment of their ghoul comrades.

 **Knight Bael: G** ot into a scuffle with the Midwesterners over the treatment of their ghoul comrades.

 **Knight Fromm:** Wounded by an explosion during the taking of Fort Constantine.

 **[Knight Keaton]:** Killed by an explosion during the taking of Fort Constantine.

 **Initiate Reddin** : A promising Initiate passed over by the Lyons Pride in favor of Initiate Danse.

 **-THE LYONS PRIDE**

 **Star Paladin Sarah Lyons**

 **Paladin Vargas** : The Pride's second in command and combat medic.

 **Paladin Greg "Kodiak" Bear** : A Pitt native rescued during the Scourge. A specialist in heavy weapons and CQC, Sarah's childhood friend. Severely wounded during the taking of Fort Constantine.

 **Paladin Glade** : The Pride's heavy weapon specialist and proud owner of the Fat Man "Betsy".

 **Knight-Captain Colvin** : A very religious man and one of the Pride's snipers. His armor is covered in written Biblical psalms and quotes.

 **Knight-Captain Dawn** : The abrasive and competitive other half of the Pride's sniping team.

 **Knight-Captain Irwin Gallows** : A former Circle of Steel operative who bought into Lyons cause. A lone wolf scout.

 **Initiate Danse** : A promising recruit drafted into the Pride to bolster the ranks.

 **THE MIDWEST BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL**

 **Elder Genevieve Williams** : Grand-nephew of the original Elder Williams who defeated the Calculator, she rose to the rank on her own merits. Tenuously positive towards strengthening relationships with the East Coast Chapter after the Enclave's resurgence in Chicago.

 **Paladin Commander Teagan** : The leader of the Midwesterner expedition to D.C.

- **Paladin Brandis** : One of the most experienced Paladins in the Midwestern Chapter, Teagan's second in command.

 **Lancer Captain Kells** : The ghoul captain of the airship _Albatross._ A husband and a father.

 **Proctor Quinlan** : The leader of the Scribes sent with the Albatross, a data retrieval and energy systems specialist.

 **THE PITT SLAVERS**

 _The Pitt's slaving empire spans along repaired railroads throughout Pennsylvania and Maryland all the way to Lake Eerie. The Pitt is always hungry for metal, food, and slaves to feed to its mills, powered by one of the last coal deposits in the US, and the guns and ammunition that it produces reach all corners of the wastes. By the end of TTL, the Enclave is invading the whole area via Vertibird._

 **Lord Ishmael Ashur** : The God-Lord of The Pitt, a former Brotherhood Paladin who was presumed KiA during the Scourge of the Pitt, and rose to be the city's new leader.

 **-Dr. Sandra Kundanika** : His wife. Institute born-and-bred, she was Dr. Virgil's assistant on the FEV project until Adam's escape. The Pan-Immunity Virion runs in her blood and in her daughter's, and she's trying to replicate it to immunize the Pitt's population. To achieve that, she carefully selected fertile women of child-bearing age from Vault 101's prisoners, due to their minimally altered genome.

 **-Marie Ashur** : Their daughter, an infant less than one year old. Commonly referred to as "the Cure."

 **[Wernher]:** Formerly Ashur's second in command until a disastrous defeat against the Appalachian tribe of the Blue Knots, he struck a deal with the Enclave to pave their way into conquering the Pitt. He was executed by Hogarth Mitchell in the Steelyard.

 **Krenshaw:** Ashur's second in command, he led the punitive expedition to retake The Crossing.

- **Duke:** His right-hand man.

 **Mex** : A Pitt slaver in charge of clearing the mad cannibals and trogs from the Arrott Building.

 **Faydra** : The Gladiator Mistress of the Hole.

 **-[Grudd Bear]** : One-half of the Bear Brothers duo of the Hole, killed by Hogarth Mitchell and The Guardian.

 **-[John Bear]:** One-half of the Bear Brothers duo of the Hole, killed by Hogarth Mitchell and The Guardian.

 **-The Old Captain** : A ghoul slave in charge of maintaining the Hole's gladiatorial arsenal. Once, a ship captain.

 **The Supervisor** : The Pitt officer in charge of Meat Park, one of The Pitt's satellite settlements along the Maryland railroad.

 **-Apollo:** A favored slave of the Supervisor, in charge of the plays at Meat Park. The holder changes quite often.

 **[Reddup]** : Leader of Meat Park's hunters and a Champion of the Hole. Killed by Hogarth Mitchell.

 **[Raymund Shen]** : A ghoul engineer responsible for restarting and maintaining The Pitt's mills and Power Plant.

 **-[Midea Shen]** : His adoptive daughter and sole receptacle of his knowledge. The ringleader of The Pitt's slave revolt. Killed by Hogarth Mitchell.

 **-[Marco]** : Her second in command and apprentice. Killed by The Guardian.

 **[The Breeder]** : A bloated psychic horror residing underneath the Steelyard, she spawned new trogs. Her mind was consumed by the Master through Hogarth, sending all trogs into catatonia.

 **THE ASCENSION**

 _A cult of intelligent super mutants that has taken over leadership of the super mutants in D.C.. Their leader, Adam, preaches about a supreme mutant, herald of a new age and born of mankind, and the cult is trying to refine the perfected FEV formula to bring them about._

 **Adam** : The leader of Ascension, an escaped Institute FEV experiment with the uncanny ability of "getting into everyone's head", as described by Dr. Kundanika.

 **-[Gabriel]** : The Ascended supervising Fort Constantine and later experimenting on prisoner Vaulties at The Crossing. He displayed an incredible regenerative ability, so much that even after being killed by the Brotherhood, his body is still trying to heal itself.

 **THE ENCLAVE**

 _Decades after the debacle of the Poseidon Oil Rig and the loss of Navarro, the Enclave has set up shop on the Eastern Seaboard. Intercepted transmissions and data recovered from the Chicago Bunker suggest that the Enclave has a presence at least at Gabriel AFB in New York, Naval Station Norfolk, Fort Dix in New Jersey, and others, while the mysterious President Eden resides in an unidentified facility, codename "Raven Rock"._

 **[Major Ford]** : The CO of the Chicago Bunker, he refused to follow President Eden's directives and attacked the Midwestern Chapter. After a year of warfare and despite the Enclave's superior technology, his position was overrun and his bunker captured. He's presumed dead.


End file.
